O
oppie
The Starter was getting a bit intermittent on my '01 LW300. It has 100K
miles on it was worth replacing the entire starter. Carquest had a rebuilt
for $155 (wholesale) with $55 core charge.
The Saturn shop manual did not allude to anything particularly difficult.
What the heck, I replace a starter in most older cars in about 30 minutes -
WRONG!
The starter was tucked up above the transaxle and under the exhaust manifold
on the rear cylinder bank. You can't even see it much less the connections.
I had a 4" diameter mirror that I needed to see what I was doing. Luckily I
had already gotten a set of the inverse Torx sockets as that and a universal
joint on the socket wrench with lots of extensions were needed to reach the
mounting bolts when I finally found them. The biggest problem was that the
battery feed cable on the starter solenoid had become loose on the stud.
Arcing ate away the threads on the nut/stud so the nut would just spin. Work
area was too tight to do anything useful. Finally I got an impact hammer and
busted off the phenolic back of the solenoid. That cleared the way to
finally remove the old starter (which took almost 15 minutes of jockeying to
free up). Once the battery terminal was free, there was enough room to
hacksaw the bolt off and free the terminal.
All told, it took about 6 hours to complete the job. Glad I didn't pay $95
an hour on the labor. I am cut up, bruised and even after taking a hot
shower and Advil, very sore from the extreme exertions at awkward work
angles.
I was considering for a while to remove the rear torque mount from the
transaxle to chassis to make for work space - either that or drop the rear
exhaust manifold. Neither particularly easy nor recommended in the shop
manual. There must be some trick that I missed, a miserable job.
Oppie
miles on it was worth replacing the entire starter. Carquest had a rebuilt
for $155 (wholesale) with $55 core charge.
The Saturn shop manual did not allude to anything particularly difficult.
What the heck, I replace a starter in most older cars in about 30 minutes -
WRONG!
The starter was tucked up above the transaxle and under the exhaust manifold
on the rear cylinder bank. You can't even see it much less the connections.
I had a 4" diameter mirror that I needed to see what I was doing. Luckily I
had already gotten a set of the inverse Torx sockets as that and a universal
joint on the socket wrench with lots of extensions were needed to reach the
mounting bolts when I finally found them. The biggest problem was that the
battery feed cable on the starter solenoid had become loose on the stud.
Arcing ate away the threads on the nut/stud so the nut would just spin. Work
area was too tight to do anything useful. Finally I got an impact hammer and
busted off the phenolic back of the solenoid. That cleared the way to
finally remove the old starter (which took almost 15 minutes of jockeying to
free up). Once the battery terminal was free, there was enough room to
hacksaw the bolt off and free the terminal.
All told, it took about 6 hours to complete the job. Glad I didn't pay $95
an hour on the labor. I am cut up, bruised and even after taking a hot
shower and Advil, very sore from the extreme exertions at awkward work
angles.
I was considering for a while to remove the rear torque mount from the
transaxle to chassis to make for work space - either that or drop the rear
exhaust manifold. Neither particularly easy nor recommended in the shop
manual. There must be some trick that I missed, a miserable job.
Oppie
