On Mon, 20 Sep 2010 22:18:35 -0700 (PDT), RS at work
wrote:

I haven;t been around much lately as my ISP has dropped USENET, and
the Google access is annoying.

This weekend I overhauled a starter in my ex's Mercury. My Taurus had
about 250k miles on it and still had the original starter, and the
Mercury has the same starter yet it had to be rebuilt with 105k. When
I pulled the starter it had a sticker showing that the starter was
remanufactured.

Upon disassembly, the brushes were shot, but the bushings and the
armiture looked great, so it was a simple matter of cleaning and
installing the brush holder and the ex had he car back in service.

I find several things curious here. First this car had the starter
fail at least twice in 105k miles yet it is the same kind of starter
that went 250k miles.

Next, the failure of the brushes in the reman (starter #2?) failed,
yet the commutator was in pristine shape.

Any of you have any speculations why this would happen?

Also why is it so dammed hard to find overhaul kits for starters?

The brushes that were installed weren't hard enough or the wrong
material.

What would a "starter overhaul kit" consist of? Both bushings, pinion
gear, brushes and the pull in relay? Probably pretty expensive for the
guy that only needs a couple of brushes :-)

Cheers,

John D. Slocomb
(jdslocombatgmail)