[V8] starter going?

[Kneale Brownson]

I've had starters rebuilt by a Bosch repair shop for way less that
purchasing a new one.  Did you try to get a new bendix through a source
like that?

At 05:19 AM 4/22/2004 -0700, Jason Wilkerson wrote:
>Ok,
>  No it isn't the starter off of a 5k - I had this same problem - or so it
>seems.  Mine would spin for ever and ever then finally it would catch -
>you could hear the starter turn but not the motor - I finally determined
>that the Bendix was bad and went to searching for one - to no avail.  I
>even tried one off of a 1.8 vw motor, which looked Identical, but isn't
>because on that car the starter is on the transmission side of the motor
>and on the v8 it is on the motor side and that means that it rotates
>opposite, and therefore is a mirror image of the v8 bendix - it will not
>work, period.  I couldn't find one anywhere, and I didn't want to buy a
>new starter because other than the bendix everything else looked so good,
>so I took the bendix off (pain) cut the band around it off, removed the
>clutch dogs and ground the inner part of the pinion down a little,
>replaced the clutch dogs with new 1/4in. drill rod (hardened), held the
>band on with a hose clamp, then welded it back (very lightly as to not
>melt the plastic inside).  Saved $180 - and it went from not starting at
>all to never skipping a beat in 10K mi!