Hey, the starter thing happened to my family (my parents and myself) during our trip through Easter Europe in the '70s. The car would not start at the Soviet-Romunian border. had to have custom officers help us push (Luckily, the car had a manual tranny). Somewhere at the beach campsite in Bulgaria (4 days later) my Dad decided to open up the starter. It was hilarous to look at his face when all kinds of loose parts fell out into his palm after he took off the cover. For the next 3 weeks (Bulgaria, Romunia, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia) we were starting the car "manually"...
:p