Starter motor question

Hi
I just wondered if any forum members had the old slipping starter motor problem? Mine slips and makes that horrible metaliic grinding noise at least a dozen times when the engine is cold before the small cog actually meshes with the flywheel.

When the engines hot, it's better, but not perfect.

But crawling under the car i had a bit of a shock. The starter motor is not in an easy location on the flywheel buy mounted higher up.

Now, many friends in the US will be saying "hey buddy, you've got a diesel and we dont have these models here" but i have a feeling even the gasoline engines also have them mounted high on the drivers side - and the way to get to them is by taking the front wheel off and getting your hands in there>

Any help would be really appreciated. Even from Aussies down under who will certainly know all about the 2.8 diesel engine.

thanks

MJ in Morocco

 

On the 3.0 gas v6 there’s an access plate for the starter in the right front wheel well. It’s held on with 4 10 mm bolts. You have to take off the wheel to get to it. You can sneak it out of there, it’s a pain and there’s not a lot of room. The last one I did took about an hour and a half. It doesn’t look like it will come out of there, trust me, it does it just takes a lot of persuading. Hope that helps you out. I have never seen a diesel version of the 2nd gen in person.

 

thanks for your kind reply, Doug. I actually rolled up my sleeves yesterday and got on with it. I also used this access space inside the wheel. It took me at least an hour and a half to remove it though as getting to the two 17mm bolts is quite hard and slow. The starter motor is remarkably small for the size of the engine and i found cleaning the crud and grease off the tiny cog, oiling the shaft and cleaning up all the terminals did the trick. I also changed the battery as i noticed that anything below 12.4 volts didnt throw the bendix cog all the way out entirely, which was the main issue. Hope this post helps others as i suspect that mine is the same as the gas engines.