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Today, I took of the old heavy starter motor with a bit of a hand position challenge. Got there in the end and wow what a weight it was. There were three holes in the shim but on two bolts holding it on. The two that were holding the starter motor on. My first question is, is this correct or should there the three bolts holding the shim on? I looked on the Rimmers site and it looks like there should be three.

With the lack of space and the awkward position, I was unable to get the new starter motor to fit on nice. I was putting the Starter Solenoid down the bottom. There seemed to be a gap in the starter morot front and the Shim, so I could put my finger in and touch the starter motor crank. I am going to look at this again later, but wonder.

Do I need to take the half circle top of the old starter motor and put it on the new one or am I missing something here?

N.B. Thinking about it, I would not think the company would sell a part where you have to take the top bit of an old starter motor and put it on the new one. So only selling part complete bits.

I just bolted mine in (three bolts). One bolt is harder to get to (put in). The red rubber gasket is just to temporarily block off the starter hole while the area around was flushed clean. Can't have any dirt/oil/grease on the car.[8D]



Here is comparison between old and gear reduction starter (solenoid almost as big as starter).






View of the starter from the bottom.




This is the heat shield I made up out of a piece of aluminum I had laying around.




There is an adapter plate that adapts the starter to the bell housing. This can be rotated around to get the angle you want the starter to sit at.

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

Mine went straight on with no problems, using 2 bolts and I left out the shim plate. Before I do many miles I want to make up some kind of heat shield though.

Russ

1981 TR7 Sprint DHC
Dursley
UK

http://tr7russ.blogspot.co.uk/

Thanks for the words guys. I went back down after lunch and worked on it again. This time it seemed to work, but I did not put the new one in the same two bolt holes that it had come out of. This is what throw me a little as I was expecting it to go in as the old one came out.

I now have one hole that I will fill with a new bolt. All went in though and it started first time. I had a bit of smoke coming from the area of the starter motor, but none the second time, so I put that down to oil drops.

All working now, just need to get/find the old heat shield.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by UKPhilTR7</i>


All working now, just need to get/find the old heat shield.
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If by old you mean original it won't fit. It attached to the starter by clips that clamped onto the starter motor. The new starter is too small for the clips (like bicycle pant leg clips) so I made my own. I got a GM heat shield from local auto parts store, saw how it was shaped, as it was for the RH side made a mirror image of it for LH side out of cardboard, made some small modifications, cut it out of aluminum sheet, bent tabs as required. Took heat shield back to store for refund (I give then lots of other business).

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

Oh no, that is a shame as I was hoping that for once, it may be a little bit easy, but I should of known.I am thinking of getting some of the thermo wrap to put on the exhaust, to help bring the temp down under the hood. It is getting cheaper now and think it is time to invest. This would do as an heat shield?

It will be better. I think I've read here in the past some have not used a heat shield but I feel better safe than sorry and while not necessary in the short term I would for the long term. That said, it isn't that big a deal to make your own heat shield. You can get a general idea of the lay out from my pictures. I didn't take any during the making of as it was all first time experimental. You can make a template out of shoe box cardboard to make sure you have the correct shape/length of the feet, etc. One foot at rear has a notch to slip into the loosened mounting bolt (hidden in picture) and two feet at the front to slip into the loosened starter assembly bolts. I left a flap of metal that I curved to protect the starter wires from road debris. Once you have the shape you want, flatten out the cardboard to get the size of aluminum you need, go down to your recyclers (or local equivalent) and get a piece. Cut it out with a jigsaw (buy, beg, borrow or steal) and metal blade, wire brush/sand edges to get rid of burrs, bend feet 90 degrees, loosen appropriate bolts and attach. You can use stainless steel instead of aluminum but it is much tougher to cut and you'll go through a few metal blades. It's not that hard and assuming it's a winter project and not a daily driver where time is not of the essence and relatively inexpensive. Cost me nothing as I had the aluminum piece, saw, blades, lying around.

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT