Changing a starter motor - difficulty?

[Tanguero]

Demondad said:

Tanguero said:

On a 4.2 leave the fuel rail attached to the throttle bodies and take the whole assembly off in one piece - its far easier! On my '97 this left adequate room to get the starter in and out without loosing too much skin.

Just don't forget those bloody spacers if you choose to take whole throttle bodies off. They are aluminium x4 and so if they go down your inlets, you've gotta fish them out with a bit of wire, and pray they haven't gone past valves into the cylinders. It has happened a couple of times to me, so I tend to just remove the fuel rail, which means you will have to fiddle the throttle pot tuning back right. Easier than an engine out job to retrieve a spacer. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Slide a bit of gaffer tape sticky side out round behind the spacer before you undo it...

I have had the inlets off a number of times and never had a problem.

[Demondad]

Top tip there Tanguero, just wonder if they can be glued on! To be fair to newbies, you can be totally unaware the spacers are there, until you see them or hear them drop.

[Mr Cerbera]

Probably too late but I got mine out by jacking the front up and going underneath - it then dropped on my right eye

Went in over the top of the engine to reinstall it.
No fuel line disconnection necessary.
('01 4.5)
Best o'

[jackwibble]

Did mine last year on a 2000/4.5/7 once the scuttle panel was off plenty of room to sort it from above without any real problems just don't drop the mounting bolts into the bell housing !

[cerb4.5lee]

jamieduff1981 said:

There must be a lot of variance in the exact parts layout in Cerberas. There is absolutely no way on this Earth the starter motor will come out the top of mine. I wasted a whole day jamming it in various awkward positions.

I remember when I did mine and I thought there isn't anyway its going to squeeze through that tiny gap but it did much to my surprise but it was an absolute pig to put back in and do the bolts up though and I made the mistake of dropping one of the bolts as well but luckily I manage to find it again.

My spanner skills are close to zero but I was annoyed that I had paid £300 to get it refurbished only for it to last less than a year so I just purchased the starter motor gearbox and did it myself for £55 and I also had a nice sense of satisfaction of doing something on the car myself.

So I can see how rewarding it must be if you do all the work yourself on a car and not to mention how much money you save too.

[Byff]

Admitted defeat and booked into Hexham - took them just under 2hrs.

As I don't have a garage, have a bad back, use the car daily (any old excuse to not do it myself) I found paying to get the job done better than doing it myself. Have to agree that the sense of satisfaction would have been worth it but hey - there's always next time.

[ukkid35]

jamieduff1981 said:

There must be a lot of variance in the exact parts layout in Cerberas. There is absolutely no way on this Earth the starter motor will come out the top of mine. I wasted a whole day jamming it in various awkward positions.

There is an almighty difference between early and late cars, you'll see what I mean when you get to see a late model with the panel removed.

[Juddder]

Managed to wrestle the Starter Motor out of my AJP 4.2 - this really is the toughest job I think I've ever done on a car!

I will do a proper write up as I took lots of photos, but basically it's a real squeeze on the 4.2 cars...

Time spent spannering so far, about 2 hours

Time spent staring at the engine thinking 'how the h*ll do I do this and why the h*ll did I start this?!', about 3 hours









BTW does anyone know what the plug is that connects to the starter motor for the +12V feed?

The wiring loom seems to just have a covered blade connector as it's end, whereas the starter has a proper lockable clip type mount - would be sensible I thought to wire the matching other half to the wiring loom so it can't fall off!

Edited by Juddder on Wednesday 6th July 10:47

[Juddder]

Juddder said:

BTW does anyone know what the plug is that connects to the starter motor for the +12V feed?

Did some research and the plug is a 'Hitachi' plug as used on Nissan starter motor and alternator connections

Picture from a Nissan website



So I bought on of these off AutoElectrics for £8.54 via eBay and the guy says is has 9cm of lead so I can remove the spare connector and join it onto the wiring loom - feels like a much more secure solution than just a blade connector with a protective cover holding on for dear life through every corner...



These are the shots I took of the one on the Nissan / TVR starter motor that it needs to connect to

Edited by Juddder on Thursday 7th July 16:16