Dangit anyway. I had my guns and gear loaded up and when I turned the Monte to start I got the click that we all dread hearing. No big deal though, I have a truck but, it's been cold and in the teens here and I haven't run it for a couple of weeks. Sure enough, batteries were too low to fire the big diesel over. My new plan went into action.
I disconnected the negative cable on the truck batteries, plugged in the charger and went to see if I could get the started to engage. After rocking the Monte back and forth a couple of times I got her to fire and off I went to town. First stop was Napa, nothing in stock. Autozone had several so I bought a rebuilt one for $69.00. That's 1/4 of the price of my Superduty starter.
Taking this little turd out was more of a challenge than I thought. There is very little room and the bolts were cranked down so tight I had to bring out the BFG. Everything was so covered in oil from a previous valve cover leak that it made it that much harder to grab pieces and move things around. It took an hour to get the old one out but only fifteen minutes to put the rebuilt one back in. Patience, enginuity, leverage and small clicks of the ratchets won the day.
The only problem is the new starter hangs up a little once the engine is fired up. I'm thinking the solenoid is a little slow or has too much grease in it. Do you think this will be a problem? Am I going to wear the teeth off of it or the fly wheel?
Regards,
Dwight
