newly rebuilt Starter keeps running sometimes

#16

Good eyes on the upper bolt hole showing thread marks from the bolt in the starter. I noticed that too, and was thinking it indicated some sort of alignment stress going on there too.

Drama is a good word for it, LOL.

I am thinking of using needle nose wire cutters to cut out 1 to 1-1/2 threads on the front of the helicoil, or pulling the entire helicoil and redoing it (but the drama of removing it has me very concerned). I also might consider putting a champher on the plate hole itself and on the lower bolt hole in the starter, as the helicoil may be lifting that plate from the under side from the looks of the pictures.

I am not sure what to make of the plate alignment issue, as the two starter bolt holes on the plate do line up perfectly.

#17

Loosening the bolts won’t work now that I think of it as there is a dowel in the block that won’t allow for that plate to move anywhere. I will have to see if I can find some other pictures I took of my truck when I had the starter out and see if that hole that appears to be mis-aligned is the same on mine.
Those heli-coils do not like to have their "threads" cut that easily. They are hard as hell, at least the ones I have tried that with and, unless you can get good purchase on your cutters, and they are good cutters, I don’t know that you will achieve anything but a sick feeling and thoughts of "why did I do this".
BTDT !
Good Luck
I would still open that lower hole a 1/16th or an 1/8th and let the heili coil move inside the bolt hole.
Might want to look at a lower bolt without a shoulder on it as well and see if that don’t help some.

Paul

Edit: Go to here: http://nissandiesel.dyndns.org/viewtopi ... ht=starter and have a look at the picture that is nearly the same as the one you took and you will see that the same hole appears to be mis-aligned. That plate may be used in different applications I guess.

#18

Commonly, the shield between the engine & trans has that weird misalignment of non-used hole above the starter. So I'd ignore that.

The lower trans hole for mounting the starter needs repair.

If your lower thread repair is an actual solid insert style, well, it needs to be finished back to flush with the bellhousing's face. Nothing else will do. I love my Dremels (four of 'em, now), but access is bad there. Finicky hand work . . . or, bend the shield out to work it easily with the Dremel, then bend it back in place to mount the starter. Yech. But possible.

If your thread repair is an actual Heli-Coil-style insert (a slinky-like insert that is not solid), I cut them (after installation) all the time with a Dremel and cutoff wheel, no problem. You'll want to make your cutoff wheel a small diameter, as they come about 1" (25mm) OD out of the box. When I need to do that, I have old, used-up ones I keep around, but in a pinch I've had to run the Dremel & cutoff wheel against a grindstone wheel to quickly reduce its size.

By not having the whole face of the starter mounting pulled up to the shield, you risk breaking the starter's entire nose off. I've seen that many times over the years. Flange-mount starters require full nose support, and I'm amazed you haven't had yours break before now.

#19

I agree Al, and the Dremel tool with a cut off wheel sounds like a great idea, sounds obvious now that I say it, LOL. I will try that this week end.

Thanks for the ideas guys.

#20

I finally got around to redoing the thread insert, thread-cert, for the lower mounting bolt on my starter. I also hammered the steel cover plate back down flat and flush.

The install looks clean and flush, the thread cert is deep, not at the surface, so I expected my starter hanging problem to be gone.

No such luck.

The gremlins here have multiplied, and I now 3 transmissions that down, or nearly down, starting problems on a fourth, and no joy on this one yet.

So I am back to look at the starter itself this time. I have one (or 2?) spare starters now, but it has been so long, I forget exactly where I was fighting this gremlin last time. All I recall is I had decided it was bent cover plate and bad thread cert that had walked out and bent the plate and throw the starter cockeyed, sideways enough to cause the starter hang to hang up on the fly wheel. As usual it seems I had, or have more than one problem.

If I got the new threads of the drilled hole and thread cert off set a little towards the block (which is possible), I guess that could be the problem, in which case I could take a little metal off the inside hole of the starters bottom bolt hole, on the left side.

I think there was also a possible problem(s) inside the newly rebuilt starter, but IIRC I tested both unmounted multiple times and they did not hang up, which eliminated one, but not the other?

#21

plenzen wrote:I elongated the bold holes slightly and rotated the starter away from the block making a bit more clearance between the pinion and ring gear. I also took a die grinder with a small very fine burr tip and cut approx 1/64th "relief" on the “leading” edges of the new pinion.( approx 15 – 20 degree angle).
Pauly

Can you elaborate on the second step, the 1/64th relief on leading edges?

I am having a hard time picturing it.

Edit: After rereading the entire prior thread, it looks to me like it is time to oval the lower hole in the starter. Unless there is still a chance this is problem with the starter itself, like the pinion gear or?

edit2: I just got to thinking, that I might need to think about torque, and which side bolt hole is being pushed on. But I do not know the rotation on the starter, and the reference point for that rotation. Looking at the thread marks on the starter in the earlier pictures, I might need to add the relief to right side of the top bolt hole due to torque, even though the alignment issue bolt hole problem "MAY" be at the bottom (not sure it is an issue now).

However, this old post at NAXJA I made a while back, has me scratching my head:

"A close friend of mine (a real sharp do it yourselfer) made an interesting observation. He says that since there is no polished area on the top of the teeth of flywheel, or in the bottom of the groves of the flywheel, that it does not look to him like the flywheel and starter gear are getting too close, close enough to cause a lock up that would keep the starter from disengaging, therefore he sees no need to back the starter away from the flywheel sideways by opening up the mounting holes in the starter (with ovals).

That leads me to think once again it is (was) the lower bolt thread cocking the starter up a bit of an angle, pointing the gear down slightly, that is letting it engage to start, but holding it from disengaging once it is rotating? "
Mike

#22

Would playing around with a shim help? Might be easier than anything else and give you some good info.

FWIW. Rufus

#23

I am wondering if there is not some risk involved in shimming, if the nose piece is not flush to the steel plate and bell housing entry? I think Al mentioned being surprised the nose had not sheered off? But maybe that was another thread?

#24

Well I did some more work on the mounting area. Seems the left side support is a free standing area of the steel plate (no support behind it), and it was bent in some, not flush or flat. Seems the bell housing only backs up about 2/3rds of the steel plate that is sandwiched between the motor block and the bell housing. The other 1/3 is easily bent!

I also drilled out the bottom bolt hole on the starter itself (about 2-2.5 mm added to the diameter). That helped a little I believe, but the starter nose piece does fit into the steel plate hole pretty tightly, so it did not allow much relief or play, or movement, side to side. It might have helped keep the shaft parallel to the crankshaft and flywheel teeth due to the slight angle of the new lower bolt hole I was forced to live with as a repair job. The new nut cert is installed much better than the prior one in the lower bolt hole.

There was a also a burr on the steel plate bottom hole and some bent plate near the bottom hole that I straightened and flattened as best I could, and I filed the burr off.

All that worked seemed to make a big difference, but it is still hanging just a little (slow to release sometimes) once in a while, but not hanging up nearly every start attempt like it was before.

I opened the second new starter I bought last year (it was still sealed in the original shipping container from the same source that I had finally gotten a real Hitachi DD starter from a week earlier). I was expecting to install it to see if the first one was bad, but I discovered that they shipped the wrong damn starter on the second order (box had the DD part number on it, but the contents was another dam* gear drive), a gear drive, that will not fit. I am amazed at how many of these companies are trying to ship and pass off a gear drive starter as a direct drive starter. Is the world full of incompetent idiots now days? Since I did not open the box and inspect it last year on receipt, I suspect I am screwed.

I took the third, used DD Hitachi starter to a local pro-rebuilder shop today. The one that ended up with a bad one way clutch in it, only 6 months after buying it from another so called pro rebuilder local shop.

I have some pictures to upload and link later.

Lastly, the rebuilder today suggested part of my problem might be solved by using larger wire to the solenoid coil with an added starter relay, like the old Ford ones, and using 10 ga wire from the battery to the relay to the starter solenoid. I think my current inherited set up is 16-18 ga wire from the Jeep ignition switch! So he suggested using the 16-18 ga wire / ignition switch to power the new relay. He also suggested my current set up may be overheating the contacts ( I never did figure exactly what contacts he was talking about or how it could cause the starter to stay engaged?) and be causing the solenoid to hang up? Not sure I see or believe that, but I could see how it might be overloading the ignition switch, which I have had to replace!!!

I am checking next to see if the 85 jeep (with the Nissan SD-22) is missing a relay that is standard on the 87 and 89 gas jeeps I have, that may have been tossed out in the PO's conversion. If so, it won't be the first hack job I have discovered on this jeep.

Edit: I just checked and the wire going to the starter solenoid from the ignition (or where ever it comes from) is only 18 ga from the looks of it (can't read a number on it anymore). I could not tell, just by looking if any of the jeeps have a realy starter relay wired in place, but they all have a small relay near the battery. The 85 has even smaller wires than the other two going to the relay, and the 85 is wired differently, so the hunt is on for more details from some FSMs.

#25

plenzen wrote: #2. It appears that the top mounting bolt is leaving thread marks on the inside of the hole in the starter.
Paul

Turns out the newly rebuilt, unused starter, right out of the box had those thread marks in the same hole!!!!!!

Hmmm!

#26

I have been away from the forum for a short time and am just reading the "Trials and Tribulations of EcoMike and his $%)#@@ ing! Starter !!.

You asked me a while back to elaborate on the upper mounting hole. I simply drilled it out 1/8th bigger and cocked the drill, to the sides to elongate or "egg shape" the upper mounting hole. As for the "relief" on the pinion. I used a die grinder and "chamfered" the "back edges" of the pinion. Not the leading edge, but the other edge. My thoughts were that it was a bit snug in the tooth spaces of the flywheel and, once the engine fired, the flywheel ,,, "Caught up to the pinion" for lack of a better description, and held on to it. Those two things that I did after 1,000 +/- installs and removals solved the problem straight away. The "chamfer" that I ground on the back side of the pinion was only about 1/64th wide and about a 15 +/- degree angle.
I apologize for being so long in replying and HTH. You may have solved the issue already.

Paul

#27

Thanks for the reply. I have not turned it back into my DD yet, but I may soon. I have tested it daily, driven it around the neighborhood, restarted it, and so far the fixing of the steel plate (getting it flat again) over the bell housing, replacing the heli-coil threads, installing the new heli-coil deeper this time, and widening the bolt hole in the starter, all seem to have solved the problem.

I still need to add the missing starter relay with a larger gauge wire from the battery to the relay to the solenoid, with the relay operated by the ignition switch. Running too much current through the ignition switch and 18 ga wire to the solenoid is the last problem I found (PO was not very bright about electrical work decisions he made in the engine swap, and I have been lax about finding and fixing them, with an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach). The 18 ga wire and ignition switch carrying all that current may have been part of the long term problem, as I replaced 2 fried ignition switches already IIRC on this one.

I found 4 separate pieces of wire twist locked together in series, some 10 ga, some 18 ga, in the 5 ft run he made from the old harness to the solenoid on the starter (hiding in some wire wrap). Some of it is indoor PVC cover house wiring that is now brittle and failing cover wise? Gauhhhd!!

In other words, it was way beyond the duct tape stage, LOL!

I also found a Y split, with the split wire leading to the alternator!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which answers some older questions about the alternator wiring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#28

I too was having some issues with the solenoid wire. I was getting a "turn key no start" situation from time to time. I thought that it was the ignition switch and purchased a new switch piece that fits on the bottom of it. I thought that it was cured but not so. About 1 week later it was doing it again, and it seemed to get worse as the weather cooled. It was to the point where it was becoming unreliable. I could turn the key and if I held it in the start position or, cycled it a number of times quickly the starter would engage and then it would be fine for a few days or maybe only until the next start cycle. I finally decided to get into it a bit deeper and I too was going to put a relay in for the solenoid. I pulled the small wire off the starter (in my case it's 14ga. I think) and when I did so I noted that it came off pretty easy, in fact real easy. I hooked my meter to it and cycled the key to the start position and I got 12.8 V (battery current) I squeezed the contacts closed a bit on the spade connector and put it back on with some dialectic grease, it was much much tighter. Did that about 3 -4 weeks ago now and no more problems. Have had some cold temps too, ( -25 C ) Long story even more boring is that it was a loose wire. If you have an 18ga. wire there that is getting a bit on the skinny side for sure. I talked to the starter rebuild guys about it when I was having issues and thought that perhaps I had a dead bar in the commutator or a stuck brush etc. He told me to check the voltage there and see what I had. He suggested that a relay might be in order as they send some starters out with relays not that much different than the old Ford type that sat on the fire wall. Said that some solenoids take 15 to 20 amps to activate as well. If that's the case and you only have 18 ga wire I can see some smoke in its future.

#29

I checked the spec on the inrush current somewhere last week on the solenoid, and it is initially up in the 45 amp area on the solenoid, then the holding current is 15-20 amp, so yes, the 18 ga is going to get a relay fix, and the multi piece scrap bailing-house wire is going too!

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newly rebuilt Starter keeps running sometimes

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