OK i finally had a chance to get the starter apart. It was dang dusty and nasty in there. I blew it out and it looks good to me. I'll snap some pics tonight when I get home. Anyway, I'm trying to get the dang thing back together. The starter thing, the thing in the middle that spins, won't go back in all the way. The two things at the bottom are stopping it, they look like two teeth.
Can someone help me out here? I really hope my starter was just dirty and didn't work right...
DON'T FORCE IT TO GO IN!
Those two things are your brushes. You need to assemble that end first and carefully spread those brushes back into their respective spring loaded areas as you slide that armature in place. Takes a bit of patience and both hands, but isn't all that hard once you've done it once.
BEFORE you do that, take a much closer look at the flat, round plate where those brushes mount. That plate should have the wires going into your starter and it will now move around much without bending the wires alot etc.
That plate has a couple, or three, (I cant recall) small tabs sticking out. I wish I could find detailed pics on this forum (they exist). Those 'locating tabs, cause the plate to be sandwiched between the upper and lower halves of the starter in just the right position. I think it's on the cap half of the starter, you will see small, flat places where each of those tabs is meant to come into contact with when properly sandwiched in there. Those contact areas need to be really, really clean and free of grease or oxidization.
Also, those positioning tabs can be bent EVER SO SLIGHTLY so as to be in much better, firmer contact with the starter casing when you re-install the bolts and re-tighten the halves together. You will litterally be making better ground contact for the brush plate when you do this.
There are threads, somewhere on the net, showing how this older version, two brush starter can be modded to solder a ground wire directly to this brush plate and then wire it to a firm frame ground outside the battery. But in a nut shell, that poor ground from brush plate to starter case is the main reason (IMHO) why the four brush starter upgrade came in later Vmaxes.
And Also, while your in there, be double sure to inspect the bearings at each end of the starter and apply a small amount of additional grease as necessary. Don't need to get carried away. All the shims need to go back as it was before.
I'll go search for pics.
Starters are expensive, at least in my book.
Anyone else chime in too.
EDIT:
I think I found the website with pics that helped me understand. But I CANNOT verify it is the right site, due to the filters here at work now won't allow me to revisit the site. Check it out and see if this is right.
http://members.chello.nl/c.cornwall/Startmotor/startmotor.htm
