Starter (solenoid) hoopajooped

[zcacogp]

Chaps,

My ever-wonderful S2 is giving grief again. She's not starting. When the key is turned there is a 'click' and nothing much more. First time I assumed it was a one-off as it worked fine when tried again 30 seconds later.

Second time (the following day, again starting from cold) she repeatedly refused to play so I tapped the starter solenoid while Mrs zcacogp turned the key. Third 'tap' and she started cranking and fired as expected.

Hot starts (5 since the problem manifested itself) are fine.

So, what would you do? I think the options are as follows;

- New solenoid. I can see a Lucas one on eBay for £40, but am cautious of it being a Lucas part - I'd prefer Bosch. Anyone have any idea where I could buy one from?
- Rebuilt starter motor. Design 911 seem to do them for about £200 (exchange).
- New starter from an OPC. (Although I'm too young for a heart attack so I don't fancy hearing the price of one.)

Back when I was a wee lad there was a place in the local town that would rebuild any starter motor (or alternator) for £40. Do such places now only exist in the memories of the likes of me?


Oli.

 

[marojojoem]

Hi Oli,

I had a quick flick though the ever thickening wodge of receipts for my 86 turbo.

I paid Porscheshop in Halesowen £190 plus shipping for an exchange starter motor last Sept. Service was good and so far it works fine.

I'm sure you are right it must be possible to get a local electrical shop to rebuild the motor after all that's what Porscheshop do and I was going to hunt a suitable place down but after a couple of "bring it over we will have a look" calls confidence in the local artisans waned.........

Mark

 

[bmnelsc]

You should be fine using an auto electric shop that services Bosch (VW, Audi, Merc, etc.). IMHO your problem sounds just like a failing solenoid so the main starter may be good for several years yet although a thorough inspection should be performed before changing just the solenoid.

 

[Monkeythree]

I got one from Carparts4less (the budget arm of Euro Car Parts). They have lots of 12-14% discount offers or sometime they put stuff really cheap in their eBay shop which I think is where I got mine.

 

[vitesse]

I posted 2 weeks ago about getting the Bosch starter motor repaired for £30 all in from my 924S track car
It needed a new plastic motor mount(what they called it) which had cracked-this is inside in the epicyclic gear box section next to the aluminium cast flange .

Seemed good value to me including bench testing

 

[Frenchy]

Fella in these parts does alternators and starters in his shed for no money at all, circa 30 quid.

 

[zcacogp]

Mark,

Thanks for your reply. That's helpful and I appreciate you digging through your history file.

As it is, things have progressed a little since I wrote that. I've taken the starter off the car and dismantled the solenoid from the motor. It seems that there are some solenoids that can be rebuilt but this one can't as it's all inside the metal canister which has a brayed-over (there is probably a better word for this) end. I can't open the end and hence can't get it apart, although I bet the contents would be easily cleaned-up for a refurbishment if I could.

A new solenoid is also available from here;


http://www.cps-service.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/344

£25 isn't the end of the world so I've ordered one and we'll see how it goes.

Thanks again for your help.


Oli.

 

[zcacogp]

Whoah - lots of replies! That'll teach me to refresh the page before replying when it's been open for a couple of hours!

New solenoid on order and I've dismantled the starter motor itself, blown out the considerable quantities of grit and dust in there, tidied up the commutator, cleaned the congealed grease out and put some nice new LM in to replace it and reassembled the whole lot. When the solenoid arrives it should work better.

The car went through three quite large floods on Friday evening which may well have contributed to the demise of the component.

I'll keep this thread updated. Thanks again for everyone's help.


Oli.

 

[zcacogp]

Chaps,

New solenoid in and all is well. Thanks for your help.

I can recommend JCR Supplies (020 8521 6494) as being a very helpful supplier of parts - they had a good selection of solenoids in stock and were able to sell me the right one over the counter for just over £18.

Additionally, it's amazing how much better the car cranks once the starter has been shown a bit of love! A cleaned-up commutator, cleaning the old grease out and putting some new stuff in and tidying up the bushes has dramatically increased the ease with which it starts!


Oli.

 

[Cater_Racer]

Hi all, after an appalling wet race yesterday, where Tom did a bit cross country stuff, the starter motor didn't. It goes clunk and the battery voltage drops to 9v but it is not turning the engine over.
Got it off the car and on the bench with volts applied it's buzzing but the gear is not coming forward to engage, and it's not turning. Solenoid or Starter Motor??

Ta
Gerry

 

[zcacogp]

Gerry,

Wow, it's been a while since this thread was started! Now that I no longer own a 944* I suspect I should be a persona non-grata in these parts but the 'ol bot sent me an eMail telling me you had posted on here and those nice security chaps seem to have let me in so maybe those old days aren't so far off after all!

OK, serious Q needs a serious answer. My guess is that your starter motor is caked with the crud of the ages and would benefit from a good clean. Take it apart and scrape the accumulated nastiness out. Dissolve it with some meths (or acetone, or scotch if you must but I seem to remember that you don't much like the stuff) and re-grease everything and you'll probably be back in the game. Failing that a new solenoid ain't pricey and there are a good number of types that fit (several models differ only slightly in position of the terminals and can be very easily fitted). Lubricate everything well when you reassemble. The whole job shouldn't take an hour and it's a satisfying one.

(For what it's worth the solenoid on my new waggon failed within days of me buying the thing. However while the starter on the 944 dangles from the lowest part of the engine and is removed in a matter of moments the one on the new machine is an absolute SOD to get out. It cost me about three hours and quite an acreage of skin from my hands to remove it from the top of the engine and I broke a few things on the way. Viva la 944, eh?)

Oli.

* - OK, that's a lie. I do still own one, but it's been tucked away in a nice dry space for the years to come. It would be more truthful for me to say that I no longer drive a 944, although I very much look forward to the day in the future when I will do so again.

 

[zcacogp]

Sorry to hear about the bad day's racing and Tom's extra-highway activities. I hope that that yesterday was a blip and that the racing biz. is generally going OK!

 

[Cater_Racer]

Sorry to hear about the bad day's racing and Tom's extra-highway activities. I hope that that yesterday was a blip and that the racing biz. is generally going OK!

Thanks Oli I've got it off (the starter motor) and on the bench and giving it a clean as you say it seems reasonably easy to get apart. The solenoid is held together with T25 torque head countersunk screws. I'll give it a clean out, with a non-alcoholic solvent. And reassemble. See if I can get it operable. It's a Bosch unit so should be quality. Fortunately we both had a good time racing, just Tom's field trip cost 2m 32s, and the pitstop changeover was 2m18s because he'd hit the door lock switch in his excitement and the marshalls wouldn't let us back on track until we'd sorted it. Even then we weren't last and finished 26th from 32. We had been 12th !


I'll report back to you ??

 

[zcacogp]

Oops - two delays in one race. That's nearly 5 minutes lost. If it was a 40-minute outing then that's a big proportion of it.

How did Tom manage to spend 2min32s driving around on some grass? Was he re-setting the SatNav or something? I guess he got stuck somewhere and had to be pushed (or pulled) out.

 

[Cater_Racer]

It's all on tape:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssylNn9SGXw&t=18s

About 1 hour into this stream, 1340 local time Future Classics.

He just got stuck on the grass coming onto the main straight, it was lethal. I was aquaplaning from 70MPH but still accelerated past 100MPH.

It's explained in my signature on the bottom of this post.


When I came out of the pits I was dead last, but managed to catch a few in the final laps.

 

[Cater_Racer]

All working after a good clean-out and re-lube. Thanks Oli

 

[zcacogp]

Thought it would be. There's something deeply joyous about solid machinery which is simple to clean up and get working again. I bet it's good for another 30 years now.

 

[Waylander]

Just as an update, JCR have gone down the tubes this summer.......

Real shame, Paul was a lovely helpful man