your thoughts on starter decision

American Pride, American Ride (or tractor)

Jim Cox

Yer original starter bendix drive is worn and kicks out with just 1-kauff of a sparkie. Get the modern "clutch style" starter bendix, it don't kick-out.

Then replace yer starter brushes and polish your copper commutator bars with some sandpaper to get mostly shinny copper. Brushes usally come contoured to fit the commutator. Generally, you really don't need to have the commutator turned, but you can if'n ya wants. Be prepaired to undercut the mica insullation from between the commutator bars with broken hacksaw blade.

Then remember the 6 volt MANTRA: "keep'em clean, bright, and tight" and don't be fer usin' enny of them thar wimpy ferrin starter cables. Gettcha sum 'arrychested 'murrcum made one-naught (1/0) thick as yer thumb starter cables..... ...respectfully, Dell

A 12 volt advocate for the right reason

From your description, I would first order the rebuild kit and rebuild the starter and just clean up the bendix. Worn brushes alone will cause your bendix to kick out. Please note that your armature will be worn to a different diameter than your replacement brushes thereby reducing the contact. You can either "risk" not doing any fine sandpaper reshaping of the brushes to contour them to the armature. It's not a whole lot of risk and you should still have enough contact, but it does happen on a 50+ year old starter.

The other thing you SHOULD DO and it's EASY, is to take a broken in half hack saw blade, wrap some tape around the remianing eye-hole end and gently file away about .005" of the thin layer of mica in each "section" of the armature. This mica acts as an electrical insulator between sections and tends to wear more slowly than the metal in the sections. Therefore, the mica sticks up between sections and causes brushes to have poor contact. Undercutting them with a hacksaw blade not only keeps brushes making good contact, but it also gives you a much longer lasting starter overhaul because it will take some time for the mica to become exposed again. AND your brushes will wear into a good contour anyway over time.

NO NEED to by a rebuilt starter whether 6v or 12v. Your 6v original starter will work just fine. AND, those remanufactured starters do NOT have the mica undercut because rebuilders are lazy.

The starter will work just fine without undercutting the mica, as the brushes are made of a harder material than generator brushes, and the mica will wear away as the copper commutator does.

This is something I learned to do from my dad who was a master mechanic and machinist in the SAC and later for the Army civil service. Done properly, it really is better and is the way most armatures are manufactured new. Might want to review a post from Wayne Mo in Aug 19, 2002 from the Archives on this subject.