deykamp

I took my 1991 C2 CAB (Tiptronic) to a shop and they stated the starter housing was broken and the cost would be an additional 2 hours labor and the core of course is no longer good.

Is it possible the starter nose (where the shaft, gear, and bearing are attched) can break. It was the original starter, but the break is shiny and clean and does not show any signs of fatigue. In my opinion the housing could not break while attached to the bell housing. Has anyone ever seen the starter housing break while installed? I believe I'm being taken for a ride. Please elt me know if anyone has ever seen the housing break, on any starter....


TIA

Dale

elbeee964

Dale, please post a photo. I'd help to see where the fracture line is.

Frankly, I don't think (if you've seen the fracture yourself) that they're 'riding' you.

For that to work, they'd have to keep a broken starter and pull it out to show every 964/993/3.2 owner that came through the shop, while they turned in all the newly removed cores.
That's a lot of trouble for the $25-50 core charge. (That's equivalent to 15 - 30 minutes billable charge time.)
The customer/owner community is small & cross-talks. Such a ruse - using such an odd failure mode, I'd wager, would soon be found out.

I think this may just be a case of where, 'stuff happens'.

tx996tt

I realize this is an old thread but has anyone else had issues with a broken starter nose casting? I pulled the starter on my 91 tip and the nose casting has a clean break with about 30% of the casting missing. I am unable to locate the missing piece and concerned it is lodged in the bell housing. I plan to drop the engine & trans to inspect. The only possible root cause(s) I can think of is: 1) Motor kick back at start up (too much timing?) 2) Damaged ring gear teeth 3)Worn starter shaft bearing allowing bendix to not engage or engage at a severe angle. Any feedback greatly appreciated.

Greg

sayporsha

It's cosmic that I'm reviving this thread exactly 2 years to the day from the last post, but it happened to me too and I resolved it today and just had to share the experience for posterity

The starter on my 1991 C2 Tiptronic coupe was acting up; it would disengage mid-crank, spin, then re-engage with a loud clunk. I drove it that way for about a month, but one day the clunk was especially loud and the starter stopped working after that (acted sluggish, like a weak battery). I pulled the starter and here's what it looked like:

sayporsha

The repeated clunks must have fatigued the nose cone of the starter to the point of disintegrating. The broken chunks were loose inside the bellhousing and I could see them through the inspection hole at the bottom. After brainstorming with friends (special thanks to Shamus964), I decided to pull the chunks out through the starter hole.

Working through the inspection hole at the bottom of the bellhousing, I drilled holes in the chunks, attached wire to them and fished the wire up through the starter hole. The first chunk came out fairly easy, jiggling it along the way to dislodge it. The second one got jammed, so I fished it back to inspection hole and drilled 2 new holes - one on each end - and attached 2 wires so I could pull from both ends to dislodge it on the way out. I strongly recommend the two hole/wire method, because fishing it back to the inspection hole was a bugger. It was time well spent to add the second hole/wire and made it easier to work it through the tight confines of the bellhousing.

sayporsha

I was fortunate to have an inspection camera to see inside the bellhousing, but this job would have been WAY more difficult without these bad boys. Arguably the best $1.99 I've ever spent to improve garage life!

sayporsha

This picture also helped me to visualize what I was dealing with. It's a lot tighter than it looks - occupied by the torque converter and ring gear - but it shows the orientation of the holes and the voids you have to work with.

FeralComprehension

Damn fine work. How the heck did you hold the shards still while drilling?

sayporsha

Thanks, the whole thing wasn't easy and took lots of patience. I used the shepherd's hook pick to pull down on the shards down while I drilled up.

sayporsha

The car would not start after replacing the starter, turns out the reference sensor got damaged by the starter debris getting flung inside the bellhousing. This was really baffling because the car ran when I parked it. Must have been on it's last legs, but it's a miracle it ran at all with the sensor bashed in like this.