9000 starter failure??? Need to diagnose and repair

Not a clutch mechanism, it's a solenoid. Yes, it is a separate components which bolts onto the side of the starter; and yes, you can replace just the solenoid.

It does sound like the solenoid is not returning fully. Sometimes this happens when they get gunged up, sometimes it just happens.

The bad news is that removing the starter motor is a bitch on a

Well I have one that regularly fails to engage, starter just spins.

Go on, depress me as to how much I have to remove...

:)

David.

Well, a couple of years ago the starter on my 170k mile 9000 stopped engaging. It turned out to be the ring gear on the flywheel that was worn. I reckon that due to compression timing etc, there are only a limited number (2 or 4??) of places an engine will actually come to rest. Seems the flywheel was only worn at the points of initial engagement.

Got a replacement flywheel from a scrapyard, rather than try to replace the ring gear!

Good luck Julian

Ok, but you won't like it...

I've never managed to do it without removing the inlet manifold!

That's a very interesting theory however, a retry on the starter switch may well start it with no problems the next time so if the engine hasn't moved, to me that would suggest that it's not the ring gear.

Oh go on, I've always wanted to try heat expanding a ring gear to fit it to a flywheel! :-|

David.

Shall I add that to the list of jobs to handle when the head gasket blows then? That and the timing chain all at once!

:)

David.

If you're going to do all those at the same time, then why not pull the engine - it'll make your life *much* easier, and you can do a whole load of other things at the same time:

and a few others

As you can see, once you've pulled the engine, many of these turn from being 6 hours jobs to being an extra half an hour.

True. I'll wait until the head gasket blows before I start thinking about this though. :)

It's all at 138k miles so shouldn't be long...

(Got a new turbo and a new gearbox though)

David.