Why that little starter bushing is important...
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2013 10:41 am
I thought some of you out there might benefit from this little tale:
When I replaced the starter in George about four years ago, I got this very nice little brass bushing which was supposed to be installed at the same time. I'd replaced a few starters before in my time, and they all came with the bushing and the admonition to put it in. I always waited until I had the engine out for some reason or another and replaced the bushing at that time. It was easy then; all you needed was a hammer and a drift. You'd knock the old bushing out and replace it with the new one, easy peasy.
I should note that, in those days, I was driving a lot more (20k miles a year at least) and running my engines a lot harder and leaner than I do now, and was getting maybe two or three years between engine pulls, what with always burning up my heads.
Well, when I replaced the starter this time, the engine was new, and I've only put maybe 23,000 miles on it in four years. On the way back from Buses By the Bridge this year, I had a lot of trouble starting the bus ... sometimes it would take seven or eight turns of the key. It was as if the solenoid itself was screwing up. No rawr-rawr-rawr-rawr-rawr-rawr at all, not even a click. Sometimes I could get it to start by putting it in neutral and rotating the engine a smidge. All the clues were there, but I didn't pick up on them.
I knew the starter had to come out, so I researched what it would take to get that damn bushing out to replace it at the same time. I found that you needed a special VW tool. If you didn't have that tool, you could get a tap slightly larger than the ID of the bushing, tap some threads into it, and pull it out that way. I happened to have a tap of that size, so I went to the used tool store and spent a buck and a half for an adapter to use it with my 3/8" drive ratchet.
I pulled the starter out and as far as I could tell, there was nothing at all wrong with either it or the solenoid. Maybe the connections were bad. Only way to tell was to put the starter back in and test them, one by one. Oh, and I might as well change that bushing, since the starter was out anyway.
I positioned the tap to start the threading process. It went right through to the flywheel. It turned out that the old bushing was almost completely gone. It was a thin sliver of brass that easily came out when I pulled on it with my little finger. I had assumed that the bushing had been replaced when the tranny was rebuilt about thirty thousand miles ago (or so the previous owner told me), but as our governor once famously said, "That was then, and this is now." I oiled the new bushing, slid it in, and tapped it home with a hammer and a piece of dowel. The starter went back in and guess what?
So now I know that replacing that little bushing isn't as hard as I thought, it can actually be done with the engine in the car with a minimum of tooling, and that I should have done it long ago. And the symptoms of a failing bushing are a lot like the symptoms of a failing solenoid.
And now you know that, too.
When I replaced the starter in George about four years ago, I got this very nice little brass bushing which was supposed to be installed at the same time. I'd replaced a few starters before in my time, and they all came with the bushing and the admonition to put it in. I always waited until I had the engine out for some reason or another and replaced the bushing at that time. It was easy then; all you needed was a hammer and a drift. You'd knock the old bushing out and replace it with the new one, easy peasy.
I should note that, in those days, I was driving a lot more (20k miles a year at least) and running my engines a lot harder and leaner than I do now, and was getting maybe two or three years between engine pulls, what with always burning up my heads.
Well, when I replaced the starter this time, the engine was new, and I've only put maybe 23,000 miles on it in four years. On the way back from Buses By the Bridge this year, I had a lot of trouble starting the bus ... sometimes it would take seven or eight turns of the key. It was as if the solenoid itself was screwing up. No rawr-rawr-rawr-rawr-rawr-rawr at all, not even a click. Sometimes I could get it to start by putting it in neutral and rotating the engine a smidge. All the clues were there, but I didn't pick up on them.
I knew the starter had to come out, so I researched what it would take to get that damn bushing out to replace it at the same time. I found that you needed a special VW tool. If you didn't have that tool, you could get a tap slightly larger than the ID of the bushing, tap some threads into it, and pull it out that way. I happened to have a tap of that size, so I went to the used tool store and spent a buck and a half for an adapter to use it with my 3/8" drive ratchet.
I pulled the starter out and as far as I could tell, there was nothing at all wrong with either it or the solenoid. Maybe the connections were bad. Only way to tell was to put the starter back in and test them, one by one. Oh, and I might as well change that bushing, since the starter was out anyway.
I positioned the tap to start the threading process. It went right through to the flywheel. It turned out that the old bushing was almost completely gone. It was a thin sliver of brass that easily came out when I pulled on it with my little finger. I had assumed that the bushing had been replaced when the tranny was rebuilt about thirty thousand miles ago (or so the previous owner told me), but as our governor once famously said, "That was then, and this is now." I oiled the new bushing, slid it in, and tapped it home with a hammer and a piece of dowel. The starter went back in and guess what?
So now I know that replacing that little bushing isn't as hard as I thought, it can actually be done with the engine in the car with a minimum of tooling, and that I should have done it long ago. And the symptoms of a failing bushing are a lot like the symptoms of a failing solenoid.
And now you know that, too.