The day before I left for my winter, southern job last
fall I went to the junkyard to retrieve the starter
off my extra van. But, they had temporarily stacked
cars on top of it and I couldn't get to the starter
that day. Sure enough, the next day on the Ohio
Turnpike I turned the key and got absolutely nothing
from the starter. I went over everything I could think
of and remained convinced it was the starter. Having
no other choice I gave in and called a tow-truck. The
driver suggested trying a trick first, before towing
it away. He crawled under the van and beat on the
starter with a hammer while I turned the key. It
worked like a charm; I thought that was a quirk of GM
starters (and fuel pumps) only, but it is true of VW
as well.

So this winter I was having some suspension work done
at an excellent shop in Wilmington, NC and I asked the
guy doing it to pull the starter and have it
completely rebuilt, not just a new solenoid. He said
this wouldn't be a problem, and for $90 a local
auto-electric shop did the work. A mere three weeks
later the starter was seizing up again. I wasn't too
thrilled, but by this time I was 1500 miles away and
SOL. So I finally get the starter from the junkyard in
mid-May and take it to a local auto-electric shop here
in Michigan, tell him I need it on June 9th for a long
trip, and I want it rebuilt down to the brushes. I
stop in the first week of June and tell him my starter
is really getting bad, I have to hit it with a hammer
every day, I really need this starter. So on June 11th
I come back and the m-f hadn't even ordered any parts
yet.

So I get home from a 2K miles trip, sometimes banging
on the starter twice a day, and discover that the
other starter isn't rebuildable, the parts add up to
more than the cost of an already rebuilt one. (rotten
field coil among other problems). So I give in and
order a factory rebuilt one, which I am picking up
today.

This post does lead to a couple questions. I'm so
disgusted with the world of auto-service that I want
to learn to re-build the starter myself. Is this
exceptionally difficult? Where could I get internal
starter parts?

I've never changed the starter on my bus myself and it
looks a bit tricky to wiggle out of there - would it
be easier to set the left rear on a jack stand? Would
I need to put both sides up on stands? Are there any
hidded tricks to changing a starter?

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