Time for a new starter?

[Gulfstream Greg]

The solenoid in my starter is on the fritz. It's acted up in the past but rarely. Recently though on our last trip to big sur twice it refused to engage until I crawled under the rig and rapped on the starter with a heavy tool. Guess it loosened up the solenoid. The symptoms are that there is just a click but the starter does not spin up. But after giving the starter a couple of hard knocks it will spin up. Anyone else have or had this problem. I do know someone else that has had the problem. Maybe the solenoid is serviceable?? I am not going to service it, just replace it but might consider keeping it as a spare instead of turning it back in for the core charge.

[Sunnynshare]

Very cheap and easy repair. http://4crawler.com/4x4//CheapTricks/Starter.shtml Good luck, Kim.

[Maineah]

Starter repair shops will have the new contacts they are about $7 There a 3 screws on the back of the solenoid once the cover is off it's easy to see whats wrong remove the brass nut on the side replace the contacts and drive it for another 60K

[5Toyota]

that is very true most often a 8 doller set of contacts open solenoid clean the plunger replace contacts and good to go . by far the most often problem with those starters

[Gulfstream Greg]

OK thanks all. That sounds like a much cheaper option. Whats the chance that this can be done with out pulling the starter out?

[5Toyota]

my son says he did it that way but was on a jacked up six cyl four runner.i think that link 4 craller. com said somthing about that. i have no exp with a six myself.i remove them but on 20 or 22res no six cyl exp myself

[zero]

My take on the matter is this. By the time a starter motor starts to show wear symptoms like the solenoid contacts getting pitted and "clicking" instead of energizing the starter - it's likely other wear items like brushes, brush holders, bushings, starter-drive etc. are also at near end-of-life.

For a car or truck that never wanders too far from home or my shop - I often just file the contacts and spend no money for a "quick fix." But on an RV that is likely to be far from home and I don't have many tools with me? No thanks. The last thing I want to do is get greasy laying under my RV 1000 miles from home. Or worse yet - paying some rip-off repair shop to fix.

If mine did it - I'd pull the starter out and check it all over and at least address the brushes, bushing-lube, drive, and solenoid contacts. The sad thing is (in a way) . . . is with some starters it is not even cost effective to fix them anymore. Starter repair shops often use the cheapest aftermarket parts they can find (some, not all).

A good OEM type starter drive, set of solenoid contacts, brushes and brush holders. bushings or bearings, etc. can run $50 to $150 with certain starters and sometimes more. A "rebuilt" starter from a shop will often have inferior parts and and a less durable armature that has been cut down. Thanks to places like China - the market if flooded with brand new starters for less then $100. No exchange needed and since new they are sold outright. A brand new starter for a V6 Toyota is $90. If it was mine - that would likely be my choice. It would also give me the option of repairing the old starter I removed and fixing it as a spare.

Note - I've heard complaints about "cheap Chinese stuff." Two of my farm tractors, my bulldozer, two of my backhoes, three diesel trucks and one Japanse car have had new Chinese starters and I've had zero problems. The brand new starter for my Chevy diesel was $69 which is amazing. I feel silly doing it since I used to work in a starter/alternator repair shop but for those cheap prices it's hard to find a good reason to fix with some.

[Vanman]

jdemaris

My take on the matter is this. By the time a starter motor starts to show wear symptoms like the solenoid contacts getting pitted and "clicking" instead of energizing the starter - it's likely other wear items like brushes, brush holders, bushings, starter-drive etc. are also at near end-of-life.

Not to mention the wear on the comm, once the copper wears down to the mica just lottsa arcing occurs. I used to rebuild, now I replace.

[Odyssey 4x4]

For the cost I'd just replace the entire starter, pretty simple fix and wont have to worry about it again.

[Maineah]

Those are most likely the toughest starters made they are all ball bearing reduction gear starters and with a new set of contacts about every 100K will start the engine they are attached to until it goes south. If it is not some thing you feel you can do your self buy a starter.

[zero]

Starter life has nothing to do with miles on a vehicle. The trouble-free life depends on drive-cycles and climate. A vehicle with 50K of short-trip driving can have a worn out starter and another with 300K can be working just fine. It's a matter of how many times that key gets turned, how long it is cranked, and how much foreign material like dust-salt-water gets into the starter.

Yes I agree that gear-reduction starters offered a nice jump in reliability. That's why the old Mopars with slant-sixes had starter motors that seemed to last forever in the 1960s. Chrysler was the 1st in the world to mass produce them and install on cars and trucks. The Japanese then copied the Mopar design.

The NippoDenso 1 KW GR starter (as used on Toyotas) is a great unit but does not last forever. All depends.

We installed Nippos on a lot of John Deere forestry equipment. Machines e.g. diesel powered log skidders parked in woods with no electricity for engine-block-heaters were particularly hard on starter motors. The OEM Delcos rarely lasted one year without needing a rebuild. The NippoDensos would often last three times that.

[Sunrading Arkansas]

When I had my first 4runner (a cherry 86...r.i.p - I flipped the poor girl my senior year...makes me sick) there was a 3 month period in highschool when I would wedge a philips between the steering wheel and dash to hold the key in the starting position and then run around and beat the starter into submission. $65 for a new starter seemed like a lot back then....good times.

[Maineah]

Starter life has nothing to do with miles on a vehicle. The trouble-free life depends on drive-cycles and climate. A vehicle with 50K of short-trip driving can have a worn out starter and another with 300K can be working just fine. It's a matter of how many times that key gets turned, how long it is cranked, and how much foreign material like dust-salt-water gets into the starter.

Yes I agree that gear-reduction starters offered a nice jump in reliability. That's why the old Mopars with slant-sixes had starter motors that seemed to last forever in the 1960s. Chrysler was the 1st in the world to mass produce them and install on cars and trucks. The Japanese then copied the Mopar design.

The NippoDenso 1 KW GR starter (as used on Toyotas) is a great unit but does not last forever. All depends.

We installed Nippos on a lot of John Deere forestry equipment. Machines e.g. diesel powered log skidders parked in woods with no electricity for engine-block-heaters were particularly hard on starter motors. The OEM Delcos rarely lasted one year without needing a rebuild. The NippoDensos would often last three times that.

Up here we hook the skiders to the trucks cooling system with quick disconnects. I have never replaced any thing but contacts in a Toyota starter not even drives the only resemblance to a MoPar starter is the fact they were gear reduction, a design that came from Rolls Royce.. The build quality is 100X better then the MoPar starter no ball bearings in them. Two sets of contacts in a Denso/Toyota starter would most likely out last the engine.

[zero]

Up here we hook the skiders to the trucks cooling system with quick disconnects. I have never replaced any thing but contacts in a Toyota starter not even drives the only resemblance to a MoPar starter is the fact they were gear reduction, a design that came from Rolls Royce.. The build quality is 100X better then the MoPar starter no ball bearings in them. Two sets of contacts in a Denso/Toyota starter would most likely out last the engine.

No argument that the Denso build qualilty is far superior to the original Mopar. I'm aware of the Rolls unit but Mopar was the first to mass produce. The Denso alternators are also high quality. We ripped out a lot of Delco, Motorola and Bosch stuff from heavy equipment and changed over to Denso with good results. And yeah - some guys had the siamese coolant-hose hookups while some others had LP gas fired block heaters. Of course, neither work unless used. Some guys would be in a hurry, squirt a 1/4 can of ether into the intake, and crank and crank.

[pcmentor29]

Hi I would like to add that on my 85 Dolphin 22re I had a similar recurring starter prob.You can take the starter out and have it tested at an autoparts store. Four things seemed to solve my problem. (1)There was an old alrm system with a starter kill relay that sometimes caused the prob. (2)Then I followed the small solenoid wire and resoldered the 2 or 3 moisture affected joints in the wrap(toward the battery). (3)Then I put a long cable on the Neg post of the battery to the intake manifold and another from there to the frame. (4)Then , the last thing that seemed to help was to get underneath and tighten the large nut on the starter power cable(I think the one from the solenoid, very short one) an 1/8th of a turn to clean it. Oh I also replaced the starter early on.

At some point I put a jumper wire(small wire) on solenoid and I would turn ignition on and then start by touching the wire to the battery. You could try this.

Good Luck

Edited May 23, 2013 by pcmentor29