IMG_20190912_224712496.jpg
Starter gear drive went out yesterday.
Yay.
IMG_20190912_224712496.jpg
Starter gear drive went out yesterday.
Yay.
Oh sh*t. Looks like the nylon split from age. First time I've seen one do that. Well, there's another thing that you won't need to mess with for a long time once you've replaced it
The thing that bugs me is the fact that it's a manual transmission truck, with an automatic transmission starter. Plus this starter is actually not that old, it's a Remy Gold brand new starter.
I ordered a new ACDELCO starter, the direct drive manual transmission one, and it should be here by next Wednesday.
One step forward, three steps back.
Hmm, I was sure the auto vs manual starters were different (output drive gears on the auto are 9 tooth...?) so they couldn't be swapped. Then there's different throw-outs on them as well. Starter motors are one of the things that can catch you out on Mitsubishis...
It says 8 tooth on the '87 starters for both auto and manual... I think the biggest difference is direct drive vs gear reduction for this specific truck, and I'll have both to compare once it shows up.
Since I'm just sitting and waiting for the new starter to show up, I decided to take a look at the A/C wiring... There's more melted wires under the dash next to the fuse block, so now I'm pulling the dash again to see how far it goes.
While the truck is in the garage, I figured I'd take care of a few other things. I replaced the upper radiator hose, there was a pinhole in the side of the old one and I'm not taking any chances. I moved the ignition coil off of the inner fender, it's now mounted to the intake manifold on the EGR block-off plate.
I'm hoping that it's just the A/C wiring that is FUBAR'd, because I can replace that. I don't want to replace most of the wiring harness itself...
New starter is in, it turns over quite a bit slower but somehow starts easier.
I pulled the dash out and pulled the three wires that had melted all the way to the connector next to the evaporator, replaced them with heavier gauge wires I stripped from the FBC harness, and I'm running then all separate from the rest of the harness.
Other than the truck not wanting to start for a few hours after driving it around a little bit, I'm going to call it fixed. I think it might have just been a slightly loose cable somewhere, after getting the battery tested and reinstalling it the truck fired up no problem... I guess I'll just wait and see if it's a recurring problem, might need to upgrade the battery cables and/or the alternator.
Damn, why did this thing roast the wiring harness? I really should go back over your thread before asking this but - have you gone over the ground leads to make sure you've got good connections? Bad grounds do all sorts of weird stuff...
The grounds are all clean and tight, but I'm seriously considering replacing all of the battery and ground cables with 0 gauge cables. Mostly just to eliminate the possibility of one of those 32 year old cables being full of corrosion or having a loose terminal...
With the amount of oil soaked into everything, the cables might not have any corrosion at all in them... But I'm pretty sure heavier gauge would help A LOT with the starting, and probably charging... That and a 90 amp alternator would help quite a bit as well.
So, tried starting the truck again and it didn't want to. The battery has a full 12.5 volts, but it's acting like the battery is almost dead and the starter is cranking over extremely slowly. I might take it over to Advanced and have them do a current draw test on it, because if it's not pushing out enough amps then I can warranty the battery with those test results. Or just get a full refund and buy a bigger battery.
I'm also going to look at getting a heavier gauge battery cable to try and get all the power that I can to that starter.
Truck ran really well when it actually started this morning, though.
Starter is still not wanting to turn over fast enough... I replaced the battery cable to the starter, added an extra ground to the engine block, and cleaned every connection.
The only other thing I can think of is to pull the starter out and check it over, see if it's a clearance issue between the gear and the flywheel or the brushes not making full contact...
But I did get that toolbox for the bed (finally). Its too narrow to sit on the bed sides, but it was free so I'll either figure out some kind of brackets to mount it or trade it for one that will fit. Part of me wants to mount it to the wheel wells and just mount a spare wheel or two behind it , maybe build a roll bar with an integrated spare mount. IDK.
I assume the latest post means you have had the battery tested under load? That means when you are trying to start the motor. If not try that before removing the starter. Cause that is a PIA
Actually if you have a newer battery you know is good putting that in and trying to start will also tell you if the battery is bad or too drained.
I had the battery load tested, it had 708 cranking amps, it's rated for 650 at 32°F. That and it's only 3 months old.
I'm thinking that either your starter is binding (was the tooth count on the drive gear the same?), or that the new starter is junk. Not wanting to start for a few hours after driving around for a bit makes me think that there is possibly a shorted winding that gets worse with heat soak. Replacing the cables with heavier gauge wire is never a bad idea, but unless you had cranking problems before you replaced the starter, they are not likely the culprit.Originally Posted by WarStryker13
Alright, I'm going to offer a synopsis of the problem. The 9 tooth starter has a slightly wider overall diameter of output gear than the 8 tooth manual starter. The small difference in diameter means it requires more force to engage with the ring gear and that extra diameter needs to be offset somewhere. This is where the shattered nylon gear housing and the difficulty in turning over is significant - that is the effect of the incorrect starter motor being used as it is literally jamming itself to engage. There is another issue waiting to surface which is a bad one - the ring gear getting damaged from excessive wear. Source a used manual starter and test the theory, then decide if you need a new starter motor. Like I said, just a theory...
Found the issue...
IMG_20190922_213950738.jpg
Reman starter was junk right out of the box, one of the brushes were cracked and split in half.
I'm going to grab a starter or two or three from the junkyard, along with a couple distributors.
Gotta love when things just keep breaking...
Explains a bunch of things. No chance of claiming on the warranty?
^^^
these work very well if You are on a budget .
Volkswagen Generator brushes...
With the amount I found wrong with that starter, I'm never getting an ACDelco reman again.
Both mounting holes had helicoils in them, the solenoid had issues, and the insulation for the windings was falling apart and flaking off. But the motor and the gear drive both look damn bear perfect, so I'll keep that and the other parts from the old starter...
I'm planning on putting together as many good, working starters as I can from the two I have and whatever I can get from the junkyard, and hopefully I'll have two working starters by the end of this. One in the truck, and another in the tool box in case I have issues later on.
You can buy starter brush holder assemblies off ebay pretty cheap. Just need a starter motor with a good commutator that hasn't been roasted and clean it out. That is one crap starter motor overhaul - I do better jobs than that and I'm not even trained...
A small update on the truck, I got the bed box from my coworker finally, it was payment for helping him get his truck onto post and doing a little work on his truck.
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I bolted it directly to the bed, because I'm not going to be building a roll bar or brackets for it any time soon. I did realize that with it sitting under the sides of the bed it's less visibly obvious, so there's less chance of someone trying to break into it or steal it.
I tried going to the junkyard today, but it's apparently closed. I did get a chance to look through the trees... The Raider is gone unfortunately, but there's still a few Ram 50s that I could see, along with a couple of 3rd gen Monteros. I'm hoping I'll be able to find a couple of starters and distributors, but I have a feeling I'll be lucky to find one of each. I am going to try and dig up some interior pieces, look for manual locking hubs, and anything else I can use.
It blew up. But first a little backstory.
Went to the junkyard yesterday, only found one starter. The Raider is gone, there's only 4 Ram 50s left, two of them were missing the engine and trans, one had just a shortblock, and the last one was missing the distributor and carburetor...
The junkyard starter is a Bosch remanufactured unit, it works really well. At first I thought the solenoid spring might be broken or just weak, because it sounded like the gear wasn't fully retracting once the engine was running. I had the same sound with the ACDelco remanufactured starter, and the solenoid spring was much thinner and weaker than the solenoid spring in the old gear reduction starter.
So when I started the truck this morning, the oil light stayed on for a few seconds after the engine started and the rattle that I thought was the starter gear was quite a bit louder. The oil light went off after about 10 seconds of idling, and the rattle stopped after I bumped the throttle to back out of my driveway. The oil light has done that almost every time I started the truck before, but it usually went off after 3-5 seconds.
I drove it across post, parked it for an hour, and when starting it the second time the oil light went out almost immediately. The rattle didn't stop until I started driving away, but I could still hear a little bit of what sounded like the gear catching on the flywheel a little when I started off from a stop, and I heard it a few times after shifting gears or around corners. I was planning on pulling the starter off tonight after work, but I needed to head to work and I felt like the truck was ready for a long distance road test. I had prepared as much as I could, I double and triple checked everything, and I headed out. This time the rattle was a little more pronounced, but it went away pretty quickly. The oil light went off after 5 seconds of idling, and the rattle was intermittent and random. It was running great, I was cruising at 55 mph for about 20 miles, and then suddenly the oil light came on, the engine was slowly dropping in RPMs regardless of what position the throttle pedal was at, and it stopped as soon as I let off the throttle to pull off on a side road. I coasted about 50 feet, turned on the hazards and sat there for a moment hoping it was just a wire that came unplugged or something else small.
I popped the hood, there was nothing unplugged but I did see a small wisp of smoke out of the breather. I looked at the dipstick, there was still plenty of oil in the engine and I couldn't see anything obvious on it. I tried starting it again and smoke started puffing out of the breather, but it started. It died again after a few minutes, and after that refused to start and it sounded like the starter was fighting to turn it over. I pulled the dipstick again and found sparkles.
So now I get to pull the engine, pull it apart, figure out what went wrong and where, and go from there.
YAY!
Dang! best of luck to you. I had my transmission fail on me last year and all the crap that went along with that so I know your pain! hopefully it will be something straight forward and fairly easy to deal with. someone will chime in and give some more pointers on things to check/evaluate but it may be a good idea when the dust settles to isolate where the engine has seized up. I think that it could be possible (someone correct me if im wrong) but these engines tend to seize up at the cam when they get low on oil pressure. by the symptoms you describe i have seen a g54b do that since the cam simply rides in the aluminum head near the top of the engine. i pulled the rocker arms off to find the cam all chewed up and if you remove the bolt holding the cam sprocket on you can try turning the crank shaft with a breaker bar back and forth to see if the bottom end is free (just don't turn it to far and let the timing chain jump a tooth). if it turns free you might just need a new head possibly. Again someone correct me if im wrong in this thinking. also the balance shafts and oil pump have there own chain to drive them separately from the timing chain so something could be wrong there however this is a single width chain that tends to just snap and starve the whole engine for oil if anything seizes on its path.
Due to the abuse this poor truck soaked up before you got it, I hate to say it but it's either engine swap or rebuild time. Don't know about seized cams in the 4G54 (this seemed to be a trait of 4G64's that have been cooked) but this might only need new bearings put through it, timing chains and guides, a light hone of the block and new stock rings. If you decide to pull it down hopefully you won't find the head or the crank chewed up. It looked like it was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, too bad it was an oncoming train...
The dipstick had some bigger pieces of bearing material on it, looked like aluminum flakes... So I'm pretty sure I won't be able to just swap the head.
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