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Replacing my VY V6 Auto (Stn. Wag.) starter motor

wire_weaver

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Today I had SUCCESS ! The new OEX brand starter motor is in place and working well.:)
Some points to help others.
  1. There was no heat shield around the solenoid to remove in my car (VY V6)
  2. There was a plate in front of the bellhousing to keep dust out that I had to remove (only one 10mm screw). Also without removing that I couldn't even get a socket over one of the starter body bolts.
  3. The starter body bolts were not 11mm as other threads indicated, mine were a whopping 15mm.
  4. The starter body bolts were very hard to crack. Hardly any corrosion in the threads. I could only put WD40 in the thread of one of the bolts from above which eventually penetrated and did the trick. I didn't bother with an extension pole on my spanner handle as there was hardly any room. Instead I initially tried hitting the socket handle with a hammer without success.
  5. If the central steering gear housing and rack were out of the way it would have been easier to get my hands and the wrench in the right position for better leverage, but I persevered.
  6. The smaller electrical terminal (spade lug socket with plastic insulator) was pretty grimy on the old starter. It is possible that was the reason my starter was intermittent, but I won't know without putting the old one back in. So I cleaned up the inside of the spade socket with INOX MX3 followed by 99.9% isopropyl alcohol to flush off the INOX. I did the same with my battery terminals as there was a small amt. of corrosion there too.
  7. The ramp set I used kept sliding on the concrete driveway when driving the car onto it, I discovered I could have purchased rubber treads for it but in the interim I put an old towel under each ramp that the front wheels ran over first to minimise slipping.
A few pics are below.
Thanks all for your help.
 
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krusing

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Well done,

For what it is worth, I can not drive either of my cars directly onto the ramps, with out damaging the front Bumpers,
So I purchase a plank of THICK timber the width of the ramps,
and cut them the length of a 1 meter each, and place them on the 3rd run of the Ramps,
So I have made timber ramps to get on to the car ramps, so to speak,
which makes its easier to get the weight onto the car ramps, and wont slide.
But most of all, saves the bumper from damage.
 
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Utel67

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  1. If the central steering gear housing and rack were out of the way it would have been easier to get my hands and the wrench in the right position for better leverage, but I persevered.
There are things called extension bars for ratchet's you could of used to make it easier :rolleyes:
 

wire_weaver

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There are things called extension bars for ratchet's you could of used to make it easier
Yup, I considered that and might have done so if I had no success. But as I wrote above, "I didn't bother with an extension pole on my spanner handle as there was hardly any room.".

When I was at Bunnings today getting a 15mm socket I asked about putting a pole on to extend the handle length, the sales guy was actually a motor mechanic and said he had more success with pneumatic impact drivers rather than longer handles, suggesting that if I kept hitting the handle with a hammer it would eventually crack the bolt. I decided to try that before getting an extension. It's hard to say if my hammer bashing helped or not, it might have. It eventually cracked when I was using brute force (not the hammer). I also wonder if the fact that the engine had cooled down a bit when I eventually cracked the bolts as the high tensile alloy steel bolts might have shrunk more than the different grade steel threaded holes had shrunk as they had different thermal expansion coefficients. Dunno, too many variables.
 

wire_weaver

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Extension bar goes between ratchet and socket piece.

Ah, right, thanks, my bad. :oops: Um, yes an extension bar would have given me plenty of room to swing the handle, and a longer handle (with pole/pipe extn.) if I needed to. Great idea for next time !
 
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