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#1 ·
I think the armature in the starter in my 95 Sedan DeVille is dying based on the
discussion in one of the great threads here. When the engine warms up, I may not be able to restart the car right away. I have to wait for a while to cool the starter down...

Well, I have decided to change the armature. I called up one rebuild place near Chicago. They said there are two types of armatures for SD250. One with bushings for $25 and another with bearings for $28. They said they don't know which is right for me. It sounds one with bearings is better, but I am not sure if it fits in my starter.

Does anybody know which one is for a 4.9 in 95 Sedan DeVille or if they are interchangable?

Thank you!
 
#27 ·
OK, I tried to replace the starter today.

Apparently, the guy at the rebuild-shop was right! My ACDelco (original?) starter has two needle bearings at the both ends of the starter housing, making it impossible to install the rebuild armature from adalla. Because of those needle bearings, both ends of the armature have about 1 cm section with reduced diameter. Since the armature for bushing has a shaft with uniform diameter, it just doesn't fit in the housing... Too bad.

So, I couldn't do anything on it. One commutator was a bit discolored. I think that is the cause of difficult starting when hot. Everything else seems to be OK.

As everybody said, it wasn't too difficult to remove the starter. There was just enough space to get the starter out between the exhaust piping and the engine, but it did come out.

A question to N0DIH; it seemed very difficult to remove retainer ring on the shaft that holds the drive assy. Any tip to remove it? I put a deep 15 mm socket and knocked the retainer ring lock. But the ring itself was stuck in the groove on the shaft. I didn't try hard to get it out, since I could not do anything further, but it seemed difficult to get it out.
 
#28 ·
If it is the ring I am thinking of (my books are in the car, I'll get them out in a bit) the FSM shows 2 pairs of pliers or vice grips clamping on to it (compressing the thickness of it) from both sides and removing it that way. I don't remember having any problems with it on mine.

I'll look in the book tonight and scan if it I can if that would help.

It just needs to be unlocked and it comes right off.

Yup, the discolored one of the culprit. If you are good at soldering and can get some silver solder (not that wimpy stiff, more like brazing rod) you can repair it. Mine only lasted 6 months or so with plain jane tin/lead solder. (yes, I admit, my car is not RoHS compliant for lead....) The commutator will turn that spot and the power won't conduct so it stays dead, move it slightly and all is fine!
 
#29 ·
Thanks for the very quick reply!

N0DIH said:
If it is the ring I am thinking of (my books are in the car, I'll get them out in a bit) the FSM shows 2 pairs of pliers or vice grips clamping on to it (compressing the thickness of it) from both sides and removing it that way. I don't remember having any problems with it on mine.

I'll look in the book tonight and scan if it I can if that would help.

It just needs to be unlocked and it comes right off.
If you can scan (or photograph) that page and email to me, that would be great. I am not in hurry, so...

N0DIH said:
Yup, the discolored one of the culprit. If you are good at soldering and can get some silver solder (not that wimpy stiff, more like brazing rod) you can repair it. Mine only lasted 6 months or so with plain jane tin/lead solder. (yes, I admit, my car is not RoHS compliant for lead....) The commutator will turn that spot and the power won't conduct so it stays dead, move it slightly and all is fine!
Well, the iron core plates forming poles are not aligned any more. I don't know what happened, but to me wires (coil) are little jamed and they may loose insulation to the core soon. I feel that it would be better to just replace the armature. Interesting thing was that although the contact looked a bit discolored, the connection between the contact and coil wires didn't look bad. It just looked fine like any others... I expected the connection part to be more suspicious looking, but it was not. Did yours look bad?

Anyway, thanks for your help. As soon as I do another try, I will let you know...
 
#30 ·
OK, today, I got a rebuild armature for SD-250 with needle bearings. It was $25 . It looks like the commutator and connections to coils were completely replaced and re-done. I will find some time to replace the armature. Now all I need is an instruction from N0DIH.

Thanks!
 
#31 ·
Update:

Today, I again removed the starter. It was much easier and quicker than before. I put a rebuild armature (one for the starter housing with bearings). I used a 15 mm deep socket to lightly punch the pinion stop collar out and 3 pieces of wire to remove the retaining c-ring. I put wires between the c-ring and shaft. Two wires went near both ends, another went about the middle. I pulled all 3 wires simultaneously to pull the c-ring out. Once it is out of the groove on the shaft, it was easy to pull along the shaft and get it out. I was told that the c-ring was not supposed to be reused, I didn't have a new one, so I just reused. To install the c-ring, I put it on the end of the shaft and using a 11 mm deep socket, I lightly punch to put it over the shaft. Very end of the shaft is a reduced diameter portion and using the 11 mm sockrt, you can put the ring only over this section. Once it is on the part of the shaft with reduced diameter, I used 12 mm deep socket to further punch over the norminal diameter portion all the way to the groove on the shaft. Then using 3 visegrips, I pushed the pinion stop collar over the retaining c-ring again. Once it is over the c-ring, you have to further move it to completely seat it by hand.

One tricky part was that the rebuild armature seems to have an armature break washer attached to the armature. So, when I put all together, the washer pushed the armature. It seemed that the starter would not work properly. So, I had to remove the washer and put all again. Then I was able to maintain enough "play" between the armature and the housing. I suppose there are several different types of armatures around and we have to be very careful when rebuild.

A 5 mm wrench was needed to remove brushes. All other bolts on the starter were 8 mm.

Anyway, I would like to thank for everyone who helped me. This site was very helpful. It is working well. Now I can go to gas stations anytime without worrying about cooling the engine to restart!!
 
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