Reliable starter motor

[Bob Morey]

I need a reliable starter motor for my 1800cc Alfetta GT.  What suggestions do people have?  Over 5 years & 75,000km I've gone through 1 recond. original & 2 new Bosch starters.  They've all failed giving symptoms of the solenoid engaging but failing to turn the motor.

Thanks
Bob

[alfagtv58]

I've currently got a starter from a 75 twin spark on mine, and it has been fine.  Another option is going with an alluminium gear reduction starter which you can get from Castle Auto Electrics....they even make an adaptor for Alfa 2 litre (not sure if there is a diff with the 1.8 though)

[Neil Choi]

Hi Bob

A bit of a coincidence here.

My starter on my Alfetta GT 1.8 also just failed, after it was reconditioned about 2-3 months ago.  Starter in and out about 5 times now.  Fun job.

Now I can tell you that a 2L will not fit, the tooth pitch is different on the pinion to the ring gear.  But you probably know this already.

I broke two 2L starters before we realise this and so then I just had the old 1.8 one reconditioned.

So now it is off again for another reco.

Apparently, the 1.8L Alfetta one could be the same as 105 1750 ones.  Not 100% sure.

Bear in mind, if you go the way of Phil's of having a 75 starter, you will need to swap the pinion.

The 75 starter is a lot lighter.

Anyway, off to the auto elec now.

Cheers
Neil

[Barry Edmunds]

Bob

I've got a couple of 'good' starter motors if you would like to try them out while you are solving rhe problem/s with yours.

Phil's suggeston about a reduction unit might be the best option in the long term though.

Contact me on 0405 383 431 if you want to follow up.

Barry

[Jekyll and Hyde]

I need a reliable starter motor for my 1800cc Alfetta GT.  What suggestions do people have?  Over 5 years & 75,000km I've gone through 1 recond. original & 2 new Bosch starters.  They've all failed giving symptoms of the solenoid engaging but failing to turn the motor.

Thanks
Bob

I've found a hill pretty good....

Try fitting a relay to the starter motor, if you haven't already.  The idea is to give the solenoid energising wire a better source of power, allowing the solenoid to pull the contacts together more firmly.

[MD]

Bob,

Jekyll is on the money.

The typical problem is that the solenoid is energised by the ignition circuit which doesn't have enough amperage to work the solenoid hard enough. This in turn fails to pull the starter motor contacts with enough force to make a serious contact which needs to carry very high amperage to spin the starter.

So,

If you fit a relay to your ignition circuit that subsequently energises the relay contacts to provide a direct high current supply to the solenoid (via a fuse), this will do the job 99.99% of the time.

A simple job for an auto electrician that should be a cheap excercise if you are not confident to do it yourself.

[shane wescott]

My money would be on dodgy supply rather than dead solenoids.

I suppose the way to check is a fully charged battery across the solenoid out of the car. My GTV6 likes to have periods where the solenoid doensnt quite drop in from time to time. My view is that it is a heat/voltage related thing.

But while it only happens occassionally, I think it gives the car more personality :-)

But i do know one day I will spend too much time stroking the Ducati and the starter will go all together :-(

Just to let me know who's the Boss.

[Bob Morey]

Thanks for the excellent input as always guys.  I'll try the relay on the solenoid circuit first.  As well as occassionally not turning the motor at all I've felt there has sometimes been a delay before the starter turned. This is consistent with the power supply to the solenoid being the problem.  The starter should be fine as it has only been on the car for 20,000 km and was brand new.

Bob