The starter on my truck started flaking out about 4 months ago. I started carrying a whacking stick in the cab to rap it if it acted up, but after four or five times, it started behaving. Evidently, just carrying the stick around was enough to convince it to behave for most of the summer. A couple of weeks ago it started acting up again, and whacking it wasn't helping. The time has come to replace this turkey. Once more into the breech my friends. This time I was little more determined. I took over the whole garage. Moved the bikes to one side, and banished the cars to the driveway. Pieced together a 20" extension, put on the socket and the breaker bar, wiggled them into position, got the socket on the bolt, crawled under the truck and heaved on the breaker bar. Nothing. Squirm around, try and get a better position and try again. Still nothing. Go looking for a piece of pipe to use as a cheater. I used to have a three foot length of one inch water pipe that I used for problems like this, but I gave it up several years ago, and now I can't find one. Never a piece of pipe around when you need one. Was just about to go and start harassing my neighbors when I remembered the torque wrench. It is only about six inches longer than the breaker bar, but it might be enough. Go through the same shenanigans again getting it in position and pull, and this time I am rewarded with a mighty CRACK! The problem bolt finally broke loose. Unscrewed by hand after that.
Naturally I had taken all day to get this far, so when I leave for the auto parts store it is five after five. They are probably closed, but we'll give it a shot anyway. I get there and there are three cars in the parking lot and couple people standing out front talking. Maybe they are still open. I get out and one of the guys tells me they are closed. If you are closed, what are you guys doing standing around here making the place look like it's open? Leave already, meatheads. I don't say anything out loud, I just mutter under my breath until I get to Autozone, which is open till 9PM. Now that's my kind of store.
The only other problem I ran into was getting the new starter back in position. The bottom screw is actually a mounting stud, and the top bolt has to go through a transmission line mounting tab, so I had to tip the front of the starter up so as to get the top end of the flange up under the mounting tab and then slide the lower mounting hole over the stud. Other than that it was a piece of cake, relatively speaking.
Update April 2020 replace dead Picasa slideshow with image and link to Google Photos album.
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