Gear Reduction Starter

While I had the engine and tranny out, I hemmed and hawed over replacing the starter............but my starter was only 2 years old. But now was the time to put in a gear reduction (or Hi-Torque) starter.......but my starter was only 2 years old and a new starter was another $200. So I didn't install one. The car drove great for about 400 miles with absolutely no indication of a problem. Then I stopped at BJ's for a liquid gold fill up at $4.15/gallon. After cashing in my 401K to pay for the fill up, I turned the key and got......click....click...click. In over 10 years, I have never been stranded by my car.............and.....it has never seen the hook of a tow truck. I wasn't about to start now! I figured it was either the starter of the battery. In either case I could jump the car the old fashioned way........get it moving, put the tranny in 2nd gear and pop the clutch. The only problem was, I was at a gas station. So I called my wife.....and called.....and called over and over again. I figured she was between school and home but answering a cell call ( or even having her cell turned on) was never a priority! I finally got her about 45 minutes later as she walked in the door at home. Wow...... lookie all these missed cell calls.....there must be 10 of them! DUH! So I had her grab some nylon straps and come get me. I hooked the car up. She pulled me out of the way........I dumped the clutch and she started right up. God love TBI!

Next up was diagnosing the problem. A quick email to the Triumph & 6_Pack Mail Lists got me dozens of responses with most focusing on my 8 year old battery. The consensus was any battery older then 6 years was living on borrowed time. A couple of folks picked up on my comment that I had also lost all my radio stations which indicated a complete loss of electrical power. My TBI friend, Rick Patton, suggested turning on the lights, turning the key to run position and observe what happens. If the lights go out, you've got a short somewhere.............and mine went out. Next up was to disconnect the big power wires to the starter, tie them together and do the same test over again. If the lights go out again, the short is in the cables, if not, it's the starter. My lights stayed on so the starter must have an internal short............and....um...... when I looked under the hood after the first short test, I noticed smoke coming from the starter.......which is never a good sign! I removed the starter, clamped it in my vice and hooked up the battery......the gear popped up but wouldn't spin. I called Ted Schumacher, TS Imports, and ordered one of his gear reduction starters.

In the meantime I headed off to my local NAPA store and picked up one of their top rated Legend batteries. I wasn't going to risk continued use of my 8 year old Die Hard.

When I got the starter, I couldn't believe how much smaller and lighter it was............we're talking 11 POUNDS lighter!

	Look at the difference between these two starters!

Once I got by the size difference, I focused on the easiest way to get it installed working alone. TR6 starters can be a bear to install, especially getting a wrench on the top nut which is typically on the tranny side on the engine back plate & bell housing. I decided to install the bolt from the tranny side so that the nut would be more easily accessed from the engine side. But I needed a special tool to hold the bolt in place.

First up is a thin 9/16" open ended wrench that you can put a nice bend in.............like this.

Then I used some J-B Weld to secure a thin piece of metal to the wrench........ effectively capping it closed. I also did a little grinding and sanding to match the wrench shape.

Now that I had a wrench that could both reach into a tight spot and capture the bolt head, it was time to actually install the starter. The starter mounting flange can be rotated if necessary and it also came with all needed wiring connections. But I still needed to get the bolt through the bell housing and the engine back plate.......so here's how that was very easily accomplished. All you need are some forceps and a telescoping magnet.

Everyone should have a telescoping magnetic wand like this

And we all should have a few different kinds of locking forceps. Note the angle of the bolt.

Magnet In	Forceps feeding the bolt in

Magnet has the bolt	Wrench keeps the bolt in place.....simple!

The face can be repositioned if necessary.	A locking spade connector is a nice touch.

All hooked up and ready to go!

A turn of the key and the car fired right up. As others have noted, there is a different sound to this starter and it does spin the engine a lot faster........which may be part of the sound thing that's going on. So I'm back on the road and hopefully that will be it until I do this winter's projects.