Heading home from Tassie and my starter motor stopped working. So I did the wack it with a spanner trick and that got it working and I made it the 1000ks home. I was really keen to do last Saturdays club ride so I did my usual prep and tried the starter hitting trick to confirm it still worked after sitting for 3 weeks and it did start BUT also produced a big puff and smoke and I could see arcing, sparking under the starter motor so decided to not go till it is fixed. So yesterday it got pulled down to see what's what.
There was a fair amount of oil under the starter motor, not a huge puddle just a smear coating everything including the main power wires from the alternator. So a had a fiddle and found a small separation between the shrink wrap on these wires and what looked like a rubber bung where you could see bare copper. I think that's where the arcing was coming from, there was oil coating the wires. So the starter was also stripped and there was about a teaspoon of oil inside the starter and burned deposits of oil all through the gubbins. The oil seal on the starter shaft has a nice sized nic in it allowing engine oil to creep into the starter. My starter was apparently replaced many years ago to the later RGS style starter or so I was informed at the time by Eades who did it for me except a couple of years back Reds starter motor reforming bloke found when he went through it that in fact, it was a frankinstined half Bosh and half RGS starter the likes of which he has never seen. BTW we found the brushes down to approx 1/3 there new state. Anyway all apparently fixable. It might even get a nice new coat of black heatproof paint.
There was a fair amount of oil under the starter motor, not a huge puddle just a smear coating everything including the main power wires from the alternator. So a had a fiddle and found a small separation between the shrink wrap on these wires and what looked like a rubber bung where you could see bare copper. I think that's where the arcing was coming from, there was oil coating the wires. So the starter was also stripped and there was about a teaspoon of oil inside the starter and burned deposits of oil all through the gubbins. The oil seal on the starter shaft has a nice sized nic in it allowing engine oil to creep into the starter. My starter was apparently replaced many years ago to the later RGS style starter or so I was informed at the time by Eades who did it for me except a couple of years back Reds starter motor reforming bloke found when he went through it that in fact, it was a frankinstined half Bosh and half RGS starter the likes of which he has never seen. BTW we found the brushes down to approx 1/3 there new state. Anyway all apparently fixable. It might even get a nice new coat of black heatproof paint.
