Starter rebuilding?
 

Had a thread on the finicky starter in my FG a few days ago. I decided to purchase a used starter since I'm pretty sure the existing starter has a problem and I wanted to keep a spare on hand. I'm looking for opinions on whether I should send the existing starter out for a rebuild, or simple disassemble, look for problems, replace the brushes and call it good? What should I look for when I disassemble it? Any other obvious wear items besides brushes and bearings?

Rebuild yourself. Starter and Alternator repair is very straightforward and not anywhere near rocket science. This is knowledge that really paid off once when a vehicle starter went our in BFE years ago. There are some good YOUTUBE videos out there like This one.

I need to do this as well. I swapped a used starter into our 300D, but I want to rebuild the one that came out of it. I am going to putting in a transmission that I rebuilt (fingers crossed) myself- may as well do a starter at the same time when there's nothing to it.

But- where can we get brushes and bearings for our Bosch units online?

Rick

Nations Auto Electric

Rick-

The nearest Bosch distributor in our area is SouthEast Power Systems on OBT in Orlando.

Danny

Its easy enough to replace brushes and perhaps bearings as well and the bendix but if there is a short in the armiture I would be at a loss, still if you do the other things and it still does not work you can always take it in to a shop.

Good point.

I just replaced my bad starter with a used one that works fine. The point here being that I didn't turn the old one in for the core charge, so I still have it. I am assuming some places will pay you the core charge amount even if you are not buying - true? Although, now that you are talking about it, I wonder if I shouldn't rebuild it and hold on to it for future use.

It probably would be a long wait. Benz starters rarely go bad. I'd be surprised if you can get someone to buy it if you didn't buy your rebuilt there.