marlinspike

My starter died a few days ago. Put in a new (rebuilt) one and it worked fine until today. Again it won't turn over. However, this time I could hear a faint fluttering noise as I cranked it. Thought wtf I'll hold it for a few seconds (dumb, I know), and almost got an electrical fire. Does the fact that I almost had a fire mean it's not the starter that's at fault but something else is jamming it up?

burnoutboy

Sounds like maybe a switched 12v wire is grounding out somewhere. Could the ignition switch itself be where the fire nearly started? Had a combo switch go bad on my civic once and the damn switch nearly caught fire on the way back from MIR a few years back.

marlinspike

Fire nearly started down in the area of the starter. I changed my clothes and am going to go look under there now (with my laptop).

Fabrik8

If the starter is stalled and can't turn electrical current into a commutated magnetic field, the starter just becomes a big power resistor. So it's possible that something is jamming it up, yes. It's also possible that your rebuilt starter is a pile of junk.


Is it possible to change the alignment of the starter, and have you looked at the flywheel ring gear for signs of damage?

marlinspike

The flywheel I know is missing one tooth, but I've read that wouldn't matter. The pinion on the last one I took out looked fine. there is no alignment on these starters, they're either installed or not.

Fabrik8

If it's something to do with the one missing tooth, you'd just hear grinding or the motor spinning without engaging. It's going to be difficult to check anything on the car if you've already had a problem with it, so I'd take the starter off of the engine and test it by itself. Then you can see exactly what's going on and whether it's jammed, stalled, etc. You'll also take your stock cables out of the equation that way, so if it works great out of the car then you could probably assume something external to the starter is wrong.

burnoutboy

I'm thinking the flywheel missing a tooth could matter. If it's meshes okay it's fine but if it gets jammed tooth to tooth after that gap it's gonna fuck things up. Jam it up and it'll stop the starter from turning. That could probably be the cause of the burning smell too, the starter burning up...

burnoutboy

Take the starter off and look to see if the gap with the missing tooth is right there, if not have the starter tested at the parts store.

Fabrik8

The easy way to find out is to remove the starter temporarily, turn the engine by hand a few degrees, and put the starter back on. It should then work perfectly if the missing tooth is at fault, unless the starter is now destroyed by the previous event.

marlinspike

Taking the starter off to test it on a bench doesn't tell you what it does under load though. Is there a way to test under load? Because Autozone doesn't know it.

What if the missing tooth is there when I pull the starter off? Does that guarantee it's the probelm? I would have thought with one missing tooth it would, if anything, just grind.