DS Starter engagement

faulksy

faulksy

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I've had the starter motor out for rebuilding and after putting everything back together have found that the pinion now only engages the ring gear intermittently. Sometimes it will work perfectly and other times it will take 10 goes before the engine cranks over. Sometimes it will start cranking and then the pinion slips out of the ring gear before the engine starts. When it does work, the starter has no problems turning the engine over.

I did reset the pinion throw as per the manual but have since adjusted it further to try and get reliable engagment. No amount of adjustment seems to help.

Is it possible that the starter motor isn't parallel with the block causing the pinion to miss the ring gear? Or could there be another reason it sometimes misses?
 
didn't think of that. I'm guessing the only way to test is to take the starter off again.

Does anyone know a way to extract the starter motor bolts that doesn't involve removing the steering rack or handbrake caliper?
 
faulksy said:
didn't think of that. I'm guessing the only way to test is to take the starter off again.

Does anyone know a way to extract the starter motor bolts that doesn't involve removing the steering rack or handbrake caliper?
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Is that pre ‘66, or post?
 
faulksy said:
didn't think of that. I'm guessing the only way to test is to take the starter off again.

Does anyone know a way to extract the starter motor bolts that doesn't involve removing the steering rack or handbrake caliper?
Click to expand...
Manifold off and draw back steering column. Shouldn’t need to touch the rack
 
The car in question is a 1970 21IE.

I can loosen the bolts enough to remove the starter but there's no way to take the bolts off the car. The one behind the pump fouls on the steering rack and the lowest one hits the parking brake caliper. The reason I ask is the bolt heads are pretty mangled making it even harder to remove/fit the starter.

Aside from a failing bendix clutch, any other ideas?
 
I don't see how it could be incorrectly seated in the engine and that should be fairly obvious as there would be an uneven gap or a gap that wasn't there before. What did you replace on this starter?
Could it be a dodgy solenoid sometimes not throwing out correctly? Binding sometimes?
I encountered one starter where the plastic fork was incorrectly fitted with one leg in the slot and the other out of it. Operation had variable results.
The pinion is moved by the fork and the ring that the fork pushes on is pushing against a spring. If the spring has broken or weak the pinion may not move far enough to engage the ring gear. Longshot is if the stop on the shaft is is missing or has lost the snap ring, it might go too far and overshoot the ring gear, but then retracting might not happen and you are apparently not having any such issue.
 
faulksy said:
The car in question is a 1970 21IE.

I can loosen the bolts enough to remove the starter but there's no way to take the bolts off the car. The one behind the pump fouls on the steering rack and the lowest one hits the parking brake caliper. The reason I ask is the bolt heads are pretty mangled making it even harder to remove/fit the starter.

Aside from a failing bendix clutch, any other ideas?
Click to expand...
That’s odd. I recently worked on a 21 ie and with the manifold off and steering column retracted the bolts come out easy. Getting them back in is another story 😤
 
Pulled the starter off again last night. I'm getting good at this, it only took 40min to remove the exhaust manifold and starter.

The bendix clutch seems to work fine and the solenoid throws it with plenty of force. I tried adjusting the throw and found the adjuster was spinning but not actually adjusting the throw. I've cleaned and greased the threads so now turning the adjuster actually does something.

While the starter was out I grabbed a mirror to have a look at the ring gear. From what I can see it's not missing any teeth which is a relief.

I'll put it all back together and report back. It's a shame there's no way to see inside the bellhousing and get an idea of what's actually happening.

It's definitley impossible to remove the top right and lower starter motor bolts on this car. The access is so poor that the heads were damaged long before I got in there, they're supposed to be 11mm but only a 12mm socket works. It would be nice to replace them but it's not worth removing the parking brake caliper and steering rack.
 
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You can usually test the starter clutch with some jumper leads and a block of wood up against the pinion. It should chew through the wood quite nicely.
 
Gti006 said:
You can usually test the starter clutch with some jumper leads and a block of wood up against the pinion. It should chew through the wood quite nicely.
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I use a screw driver, if the screw driver is flicked out the clutch is good. I do like your block of wood idea though.
 
COL said:
I use a screw driver, if the screw driver is flicked out the clutch is good. I do like your block of wood idea though.
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You have reminded me Col, that's precisely how we tested a mate's Ducellier starter after replacing the worn out brushes.
I did the powering up and he was to try and stop it spinning. Irrespective of how hard and at what angle he held that large screw driver against the bendix gears, the sprag clutch did not give - the screw driver was thrown out.
Starter installed and certainly cranks motor without any slippage.
John
 
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JAJEA said:
You have reminded me Col, that's precisely how we tested a mate's Ducellier starter after replacing the worn out brushes.
I did the powering up and he was to try and stop it spinning. Irrespective of how hard and at what angle he held that large screw driver against the bendix gears, the sprag clutch did not give - the screw driver was thrown out.
Starter installed and certainly cranks motor without any slippage.
John
Click to expand...
PS: Powering up starter motor is done directly, not via the solenoid - goes without saying.

PPS: There is a 3rd possibility of failure to turn ICE over when everything else is OK and that is, burned out contacts behind solenoid that actually transfer full battery power to the starter motor. These contacts are relatively big and the fact that their operation is instantanious, failure is rare.
Nevertheless, if that's the case, time for a new / replacement solenoid.
 
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