starter removal

[robdiehl]

Geeze! I just completed starter removal and solenoid rebuild of my 87 MKIII 5sp N/A starter today. Thanks to BTWilson86's post a bit earlier here. This took me almost 5 hours due to some misunderstanding and false starts. I'll try to enhance his details to keep others from repeating my mistakes.

I put a jack stand behind the drivers front wheel and raised it two notches. I didnt need to remove ANY items other than the starter to complete this task.

I mistakenly thought that I could remove the upper nut somehow. You cannot. You must put the 14mm box wrench on that upper NUT only to secure it while you remove the upper BOLT from behind. (I could see that upper nut from standing up above and putting my right cheek on the drivers side hood strut. This let me see if I had the box wrench on proper. Also, it worked best to place that box wrench in an upward diagonal position so it would bite on support when I turned the upper bolt from behind. When I placed my cheek against the hood strut, the box wrench was pointing directly at my eye.)

To remove the upper BOLT, follow his instructions. Just to add, that your feet should be sticking out from the drivers side for this step. And yes, it took about 24" of extensions. I put a swivel adapter at the end next to my 14mm socket. It is such an awkward angle the swivel keeped drooping, so I put a small piece of duct tape around the swivel to restrict it. Also, wait until you have the socket secure on the top bolt before adding the ratchet. I just found that gravity kept working against me at this angle. I had a fairly large ratchet, but still couldnt break the upper bolt loose, so I grabbed a foot-long cheater pipe for the ratchet, and it quickly came loose.

The lower NUT and BOLT are easy to remove, but still needed that cheater bar leverage to break things loose.

My goal was to replace the solenoid plunger and contacts to eliminate some 'dead spots' which were keeping the starter from even clicking or spinning. I bought this repair kit on eBay pretty cheap. When I removed the copper contacts, they were indeed work way down and the solenoid plunger was pretty corroded. Even though my mileage isnt too high (140k), I'm the original owner and this has been my daily driver for the past 23 years. So, I'm sure these contacts were well used.

Many thanks to BTWilson86's info above! I'm not sure how long it would have taken without them.

[batmmannn]

Yep I agree with what you said, but for me to get a wrench on the front of the top bolt I had to lay with my feet toward the front of the car under the engine and then snake my left arm up through the cables and put a box ratchet on it. It helps if you disconnect the wires to the starter first,

I barely was able to get my arm back up there to get the nut restarted on that front of the top bolt. I did this while my 26 inch extended socket was gently turned from the left side of the trans with my right hand to thread it on. It took determination and a no quit resolution because I have muscular large arms. Pays to be skinny doing this one and you can't do it without the wobble adapter on your socket. One more thing use only a 6 sided socket and grip the head of that bolt square with the wobble allowing your extensions to drop a bit as they come back toward you along the drivers side of the trans! Be prepared to use a breaking bar because the nut is on the other side from your socket you'll be turning the head of the bolt to break the nut free on the other side. Those bolts from factory are real tight you don't want to strip the heads.