It won't. Look at the pictures, the gear will pop out to engage just like the old starter.

I agree, the pics are a little deceiving. If you actually measure from the face of the mounting flange to the edge of the gear on each starter, they are probably very close to the same. That starter is designed to work without a nose cone.

__________________
For Sale: 1982 MB 300TD
1995 Chevrolet Suburban 6.5TD

Sold: 1980 IH Scout Traveler- Nissan SD33T Diesel

I agree.

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Robert, thanks for your hands-on experience!

OK, I've remeasured and it appears the pinion is about in the same place as the one with the nose cone. I'll put it in today. One question. That mounting plate is aluminum, not steel. The bolts are steel. What torque did you use in setting the mounting bolts? I know, from working on outboard engines, that we usually work in inch-pounds on those blocks--not foot-pounds, as the aluminum can be stripped so easily. I'll use Red Locktight when I put them in, but I expect they shouldn't be torqued any higher than 25lb/#, like a spark plug.

Comments? Or should I wait until I can get a spec from the manufacturer. That info should be packaged with the unit, of course.

Thanks,

John Bonds

I'd not use red locktite. maybe blue.

__________________
1984 123.193 372,xxx miles, room for Seven.

1999 Dodge Durango Cummins 4BTAA 47RE 5k lb 4x4 getting 25+mpgs, room for Seven.

Thank you. Blue it shall be.

jb

I don't get how you think that the bolts are bolting into anything differently than on the oe starter.

the holes in the starter flange are not threaded are they? the bolt bolts into the big adapter plate that bolts onto the motor, right?

25# on that bolt seems way too low.

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

From the picture it looks like they are.

Not to me

__________________
1979 240D- 316K miles - VGT Turbo, Intercooler, Stick Shift, Many Other Mods - Daily Driver

1982 300SD - 232K miles - Wife's Daily Driver

1986 560SL - Wife's red speed machine

Affirmative, the aluminum flange on both the OE and GreenMean units receive the attaching bolts directly. The bolts are captured by the aluminum housing on the OE starter, and slide through the bell housing. My concern is putting too much pressure on that steel bolt in an aluminum receiver, lest I strip those threads. The female receptacle for the bolt is slightly less thick than the OE starter, so perhaps two fewer threads will be engaged. The two attaching bolts are a bit over 12mm in diameter and about 3" in length. There is about 1" of thread on the ends of the bolts, and the GreenMean flange offers about 1/2" of engagement surface, the OE slightly more. The bolts are metric coarse threads.

I'm going to install this thing at halftime in the Texas/Oklahoma game and will report later.

John Bonds

Better hurry. It's a close game...
On a 240D it's possible, though. 300D with a turbo, not so much......

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Now 7pm. I've been working since 2:30 on this thing. Put it in twice now, and have to pull it out yet again. The flange on the front was not set for this car, and there were no instructions, so I tried to get it in as provided. Got one bolt in, after a LOT of trying, but the upper bolt wouldn't line up. Then realized that was upside down, so removed it, flipped it, and was able to get in the bottom bolt. Lining up the upper bolt, I noted that the electrical connections were now next to the engine block (1/2" away). No good.

So off again, and rotated the adapter plate 90deg CCW (looking at the pinion side). Then installed again. Ah ha, sez I. Got this licked. The solenoid was now horizontal, the starter was in an operable position, so tightened the two bolts. Then in trying to attach wiring, discovered that horizontal isn't good as the big wire from the battery runs right over the starter switch pole, which is no more than 3/4" away from the primary terminal. Yeah, I could really tighten that sucker down. It might make it to the grocery store before it shorted on the solenoid lead. So, it's gotta come off again, and rotate that adapter plate until I can make the leads work.

The good news is that I'm going to really be able to describe how to do this by the time I'm through. And the GreenMean starter can be taken out and in without removing the steering arm. But don't order one of these until we can figure out how it should be set up, and publicize it here, with consumer's report on the starter itself. At this point, a rebuilt unit woulda been in yesterday at half the cost. But I'll finish the job.

Hmph.

John Bonds 240D4sp
South Carolina

thats sad, apparently MG ain't what it used to be. I'll wager you paid buku $$ for that item. Be sure to send them a link to this thread. Already over 400 views and not even a day old.

Hopefully you'll figger out the clocking issue.

Congratulations in advance for becoming the new 'goto guy' for these starters.

__________________
Cheers,
Robert

Latest: Left it overnight. This morning, I warped the primary wires around to a south-north orientation (parallel to the long axis of the car, approaching from the rear to the posts on the starter), and was able to attach the primary with about 1/8" separation from the solenoid post. Put a rubber boot over the primary and cinched it on with a nylon wire strap.

Attached the battery cable. No solenoid activation. Good. Turned on the key. No auto solenoid activation. Good. Turned the key to start. No Bendix engagement. The starter turns nicely but doesn't engage the flywheel.

I'll try again to contact Tech assist...

John Bonds
The GreenMachine pioneer, unwittingly.

Done! After consultation with technical at Green-Mean, it went in today in about 45min. And it IS an impressive starter. It sounds like a starter on an 18wheeler, with a high pitched whine and nearly instantaneous start, less than 1sec, I'd guess. It DO spin that engine and its compression!

OK, here's how to do it. Unless you want to do it three times like I did and take several days, read and heed.

1. Remove the old starter.
a. Disconnect the negative battery cable.
b. Disconnect the cables from the starter.
c. Remove the air cleaner so you can work.
d. Disconnect the back end starter support bracket and remove (you will need that off to pull the starter out of the bell housing).
e. Remove the top starter bolt while the car is still on the ground. (It's a lot easier to lean over before you put in on jackstands.) Your tool for that top bolt is a 10mm Allan socket in a breaker bar to begin, then a rather small ratchet wrench. I used a 3/8" adapted to a 1/2" breaker bar, then an 8" 3/8 ratchet to get it the rest of the way out. It doesn't spin out after breaking.
f. Put the car on jackstands, pretty high. I used a floor jack on the engine cross member (just aft of the oil pan--make sure you're on the cross member and not the pan!), then put the jackstands under the jacking points on each side, at the highest position on my stands. Parking brake on. When I put the weight on the jackstands I also leave a bit on the floorjack, so even if a stand collapses, the car won't.
g. Remove the interference--the steering tie (or track) rod going to the right wheel. I took it off on the inboard end because it was easier to reach, then just rotated the rod out of the way. That's a 19mm nut, I think.
h. Remove the bottom bolt from the starter. Again, the 10mm Allen and breaker bar, this time with an extension of 4" or so you can swing the handle. I needed to use a pipe extension on the handle to break this bolt which had rusted a bit in place.
i. Pull the starter forward (toward the radiator) until it clears the bellhousing and set it down--doing from top or bottom as fits your body.
j. Now from underneath, rotate that big heavy fellow until you can slip it out of the gap made with the wheels in the hard right position. You'll probably have to rotate the starter to an inverted position to do this, but with that interference tie rod out of the way, you'll get it out.
And you'll be half done when you get that heavy SOB off your chest.
(This step took several hours to accomplish the first time I did it, to break out those bolts and discover that that track rod had to be moved, and about 45min to take out the MG when I had installed it incorrectly the first time.)

2. Now configure the Mean-Green (GM hereafter) starter for this car. Note the design of this unit is quite different from the OE starter (and about half the bulk and weight). There is no nose-cone on the GM starter, for one thing, so you have to pay attention to the positioning of the adapter plate. Look closely and you'll see that the ring of tabs that go into the bellhousing opening is NOT placed in the center of that plate, but slightly offset to one side. The narrow side should go toward the flywheel inside the bell housing (or on the engine side of the unit). The unit may or may not come with a magic marker "F" on that side. As long as you have that narrow side adjacent to the flywheel, the starter will engage. It does not need a nosecone because the pinion gear has its bearings internally (and on the end of the pinion gear itself) and the Bendix projects the bear and bearing together into mesh. On my car, the unit would not fit into the bellhousing as received. The solenoid was on top, the motor on the bottom and it could not be positioned squarely to the bellhousing mounting. So, I repositioned the starter on the adapter plate, so that it is angled about 30deg from the axis of the mounting bolt holes (see photo). That provides clearance and leaves the electrical poles exposed so you can attach the original wires from the OE starter. Tighten the allen screws (they are 1/4" SAE) to about 25-30ft/lbs (spark plug tension into that aluminum housing, with NevrSeize). Put a bit of Nevr-Seize in the mounting bolt sockets of the aluminum adapter plate, and on the mounting bolts while you have it out. I cleaned up the mounting bolts and ran them through the aluminum socket a couple of times to make sure the theads were clean. This should take no more than 20min to accomplish.

3. Install the new starter.
a. From underneath, push the MG unit up through the hole. It's much smaller, and if you want, you can put that tierod (track rod) back in place before you do this--but since it's off, it's even easier if you wait until you have the starter up inside its area. I'd suggest you put the track rod back in place before you lower the car so you don't bend it by mistake when you lower the floorjack.
b. Now come out from under and with your right hand coming to the back end of the starter (the exposed end when installed) from under the manifold and supports coming aft, and your left hand going down to the starter's bellhousing end, position the starter into the bellhousing, moving it around until you get the tabs of the adapter plate to slip inside the opening. Hold it there and line up the top bolt hole so you can get the bolt started in the adapter plate. Once you have a couple of threads engaged it gets easier, because the bolt will hold the thing in place. Making sure that the tabs stay inside, tighten that upper bolt until there is just a bit left (1/8" of shaft or so). I had to stand on the lower step of a ladder braced so it wouldn't slide to do this, as it's difficult to reach while the car is on the jackstands. You may find it easier to put the car on the floor to do this, but you're going to put it right back up so you can get underneath to put in the lower bolt.
c. Go back under the car with your trusty 10mm Allen wrench, extension and ratchet, insert the lower bolt from the back of the bellhousing and jiggle the starter body with your right hand, while trying to get those first threads to engage. The vertical alignment is assured because that top bolt is in place, and you need only rotate the thing slightly to get the bolt to engage. Then tighten the lower bolt until it gets close. Then back up top to tighten the upper bolt that last bit, and back under to get the bottom one to final tightness, back up to add the last tightness to the upper bolt (all this to ensure you don't get the thing torqued to one side or the other). Now the starter is in place, taking about 45min for this phase.

4. Hook it up. Attach the electrical cables to the starter. Be careful in doing this because the primary (battery) stud is VERY close to the solenoid stud. I brought the primary cable after and then took it to the primary stud coming straight forward to the post, tightening it down firmly and putting a rubber boot over it. The solenoid is no problem if the primary is isolated. If they short together, you'll probably burn out the solenoid, so it's worth extra care. (If I were building this thing, I'd separate those posts by an inch or more.) Then reconnect your battery negative cable and reinstall the air cleaner (nice time to replace that old filter).

5. Crank it. You'll smile when you hear that thing turn the engine, and perhaps wish you had 25 speeds to play with, too.

I think you'll find this easy to do, if you learn from my mistakes. It is a better mousetrap, but longeivity is unknown. I've got a USA Industries S545 sitting on my garage shelf ready to go in if this one fails. You'll have some parts left over--shown in one of the photos as orphans--that's the support bracket for the OE unit's front end which bolts to the engine block. Not needed for the ME unit.

Cheers,

John Bonds
'82 240D 4Sp
South Carolina

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