Starter Motor Re-con

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Discussion

Ballistic Banana

Original Poster:

14,700 posts

274 months

Sunday 4th January 2004
quotequote all
I have a spare Starter from my Griffith and would like to Re-condition it.
I have had it apart and given it a good clean up and can only see that the brushes are the only bit worth changing for new.
Is this all they do when you take it to get reconditioned.
This is also one of the sticking solinoid ones of which I have had apart and cleaned as it had a bit of surface rust on the actuall solinoid and a some gunk around the pivot parts.

Any other tips on what else to do.

Also anyone know what sort of paint it is that seals it.??

TIA

BB

wedg1e

26,891 posts

272 months

Sunday 4th January 2004
quotequote all
Check the condition of the bearings or bushes that the armature spins in! Although if they're bronze and worn out of round, there's probably not much you can do about it unless you have a machine shop in your back garden.
Have a shufty at the commutator (the area of the armature where the brushes make contact). You want nice clean and smooth copper segments with no steps in them... you can get them clean and smooth with fine abrasive paper, but watch the wire tails where the windings are soldered to the copper segments.
For a professional finish or if the segments are well-hammered, you need to spin the armature in a lathe and take a fine cut off the commutator - not necessary in most cases, and if you're really ham-fisted you'll write-off the armature anyway.
It's also worth digging all the cack (techie term) out from between the segments, 'cos it's mostly carbon dust, i.e. conductive, and when it diverts current to the adjacent windings, the motor loses efficiency.
Clean up ALL mating faces of electrical connections. Make the high current terminations as tight as you dare without cracking anything.
Resist the temptation to coat everthing in grease or copperslip: it attracts muck and clutch lining dust and gunks up the works, as you've observed.
Smoothrite paint should do a reasonable job of coating and sealing: it can withstand quite high temperatures.

Ian