Starter (repair)

Before searching for a possible defect or starting to repair a starter, at least in the case of the motor car, one should find out the price of an exchange unit. Perhaps it would make any repair work on the starter an economical total loss. The customer will not accept the price of the starter and the hourly rate charged for repair attempts.

Hold on, perhaps the defect is not in the starter itself. Has e.g., the voltage drop of the battery, when turning the ignition key been tested? Or the current supply to the starter? Should it be too low, the error may be that the contact resistance is too high, e.g., in the connecting cable or its terminals. In this case, please check the entire earth cable, right up to the battery. Finally, there is still the peculiar error, that when trying to start, nothing happens at all. Here, obviously there is too much contact resistance in the ignition switch (if the car still has one). Installing a shunt-relay between the ignition switch and the solenoid often saves you buying and installing a new ignition switch.

This is still not enough reason to simply replace the starter. After switching off the ignition, the combustion engine has the strange habit of always coming to a stop in one or two typical positions. When starting again, the starter must mesh in exactly at this point. This is why the teeth wear out particularly here. What we do of course, is to turn the flywheel a complete rotation, checking it thoroughly through the starter opening.

The test bench (see above picture) is designed for the correct checking of the starter, also, and particularly after the repair. Here the starter can be mounted and brought to a halt by a drum brake. Furthermore, during the idling check, without any strain, the RPMs can be measured. One has to have a lot of repair inquiries, before the purchase of this type of test bench is worthwhile, particularly as one can also carry out e.g., the short circuit testing when the starter is still mounted.

Finally, the particular importance of the acoustic check must be stressed once more. Due to the fact that the starter is not the quietest component anyway, defects can be particularly well recognised by the noise. Mostly this can be done by the driver, he/she will notice if the normal starter noises change. One can hear whether the meshing was successful or not. Perhaps the difficulty of finding the correct point to mesh in, or the meshing in/out takes too long. In this case, the gearing on the flywheel may be damaged, which makes the whole business of repairing a lot more expensive. Therefore, one should take suitable measures as soon as one hears any strange noises.

The starter must not necessarily always be completely replaced. It's quite possible that only the magnetic switch is defective. This can be recognised, when attempting to start, and no sound can be heard, not even a clicking noise. That would be heard if the starter itself was the problem. It then, could be completely siezed up, or the carbon brushes have no contact. The clicking noise that you hear is, so to speak, the deciding factor, whether the starter-motor or only the magetic switch is damaged. Of course, sufficient battery voltage must be available. However, the clicking sound may still be heard if the battery is weak. 04/11