DIY electric starter repair

In detail: do-it-yourself electric starter repair from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

A car starter is a sophisticated electrical device that can be used to start the engine by simply turning the ignition key. Any of them is designed for hundreds of thousands of successful launches, and with proper care, it can last a long time, starting a car engine without problems in any conditions. The lack of timely diagnostics and replacement of worn parts can lead to such a situation that far from home or a car service, it will simply fail, delivering a huge number of problems to the car owner.

It is worth noting that although an independent starter repair is possible, its implementation requires experience and a set of elementary tools, which are simply not at hand in a long trip. Accordingly, repairing the starter motor may not be possible, which is almost guaranteed to immobilize the vehicle. But it is far from always impossible to start the engine due to a malfunction of the starter, and before undertaking its "repair", you should pay attention to other components - for example, a flywheel or a storage battery. In addition, it is impossible to repair a starter with your own hands if you do not know how it works.

At the heart of any starter is a powerful short-lived electric motor.

Starter operation when trying to start the car is as follows:

after turning the ignition key, voltage begins to flow to the windings of the electric motor;
the bendix pushes out the gear, which is connected to the flywheel;
after a successful crankshaft spin, the bendix gear is thrown back to its original position, at the same time the electrical circuit is opened and the starter stops working.

Video (click to play).

Despite the fact that there are several types of starters, their electrical part is the same, and the only differences are in the mechanisms for automatic decoupling from the flywheel. The friction damper may also differ. In addition to the classic design, the most widespread is the starter with a planetary gearbox - it is installed on diesel and powerful gasoline engines. Such designs have some advantages over classic options:

more compact dimensions;
increased efficiency;
easier start of the motor with a weak battery charge;
this starter requires less starting current, which increases the reliability of starting in cold weather.

Of course, a more complex design makes it much more difficult to repair the device yourself.

A qualitative check of this unit is impossible without dismantling it. It is best to carry out work in a pit, which will provide the ability to move freely under the car. A standard set of wrenches will be required from the tools, and the presence of socket wrenches with a flexible extension will greatly simplify the task. Dismantling is carried out in several stages.

The terminals are removed from the storage battery.
Electrical cables are removed from the pins of the solenoid relay and terminals.
The motor protection is dismantled.
After unscrewing the nuts that secure the starter to the engine block, it can be removed.

Carrying out periodic control of the brushes, you can timely notice a critical decrease in their height, which should not be less than 12 mm. To get to the brushes, unscrew the screw securing the contact wires and squeeze the spring - after that they can be freely removed. After measuring the length, a decision is made to install new ones or return the old ones to their place.As practice shows, if the starter is already dismantled, and new brushes are in stock, it is better to replace them. It should be understood that replacing the starter brushes is an operation that must be performed regularly, especially with frequent engine starts.

This is a more laborious process than removing the brushes. Initially, it is required to remove the washer from the axle and unscrew a pair of tie bolts. After disconnecting the casing of the device, you will have to remove the tubes of insulation of the screed bolts from it. Now you should evaluate the external condition of the collector and the windings. There should be no obvious black marks on them, as well as on the collector itself. If they are still present, then it is advisable to replace the collector, although as a temporary measure, it can be cleaned with fine-grained sandpaper.

To do this, you will have to get the anchor out of the case. To get to it, you must remove the washer from the axis of the anchor itself, strip the axis of the lever and knock it out - after that it will be possible to remove the anchor along with its drive. The clutch drive lever is removed and the free rotation of the gear is checked by hand: it should be completely free in one direction, and completely blocked in the opposite direction. Chips, and even more so chips should not be detected. If free rotation is difficult or impossible, and there are traces of wear on the teeth, the coupling together with the gear are replaced with new ones - it is unacceptable to operate such a device.

In the process of gradual disassembly of the starter, using an ohmmeter, the windings of the starter itself and the armature are tested for the presence of traces of short circuits. Checking the starter armature is mandatory, since then disassembling it for the sake of this is quite problematic. Reassembling the assembly should be done carefully and slowly. Before that, all surfaces are thoroughly cleaned of dust and dirt, and plastic parts are necessarily lubricated with one of the special lubricants, for example, lithol. All metal parts, which are in excess in the starter, are treated with engine oil. How you can perform high-quality and self-diagnosis is shown in the video:

Since the bendix gear, working in tandem with the flywheel, has a huge load, they are the most common cause of failures when starting the engine. As a rule, the fact that the problem is with the gear is indicated by the periodic refusal of the starter to turn the crankshaft or its rotation too slow, not enough to start. Cracking or frequent clicks are often heard. To make sure that this is exactly the problem, a visual inspection of these nodes will help. If only the teeth on the flywheel are worn out, intermittent starting problems arise when the gear teeth fall into this pit and the starter turns idle.

A fairly common situation is such a moment - the starter clicks, but the crankshaft does not spin, or it occurs at an extremely low speed, clearly insufficient for starting. Before starting a starter repair with your own hands, you should definitely find out the reason for this behavior. There may be several of them:

seized motor shaft or bushing;
short circuit in the windings;
the stator touches the "+" of the rotor.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to visually diagnose any of the above reasons, and the starter will have to be removed. Before checking the starter, it should be thoroughly cleaned of accumulated dust and dirt. If problems are found with the shaft, tighten or replace it. In some cases, you can try to center it. Alignment will also help if the rotor touches the stator. A short circuit is easily identified by burnt contacts and a characteristic smell - if it is possible to replace the starter, it is better to do this, or give the damaged device to professionals.

A little less often, you can encounter such a situation when clicks or crackling in the starter are heard after starting the engine. Among the main reasons for this phenomenon are the following:

discharged battery, as a result of which the holding winding does not receive the proper level of power supply and cannot create a strong magnetic field to fix the armature;
open or short circuit in the holding winding.

To confirm or refute these versions, a starter test with a multimeter is required. If the test is negative, a possible cause may be burnt-out pins. The relay clicks, but there is no contact between the motor and the battery. This problem is characterized by periodicity - contact may occasionally appear.

To protect yourself from major repairs to the starter or its complete replacement, you should be more attentive to the device that is already working. It rarely happens that it suddenly fails. This is usually preceded by several signs. An attentive and experienced driver knows not only how to check a removed starter, for example, on a battery, but can also accurately determine when a breakdown is approaching in order to promptly and at minimal cost to eliminate an impending problem. For example, timely replacement of the starter bushings will help to avoid the need to replace the starter itself in the future.

Along with timely diagnostics and repairs, you need to follow the basic rules for the safe operation of the starter:

it is not allowed to use it to move a car over short distances;
attempts between unsuccessful starts of the motor should alternate with 30-second pauses, and the time of continuous operation of the device should not exceed 10-15 seconds.

Failure to comply with these rules and banal carelessness during the operation of the car can lead to the need for replacement, which will cost a fairly large amount, depending on the installed modification of this device.

Noticing the first signs of a malfunction, do not debug starter repairs on the back burner. Tightening with checking and restoring will lead to the fact that at one point the engine simply will not start. We will show in the video and tell you how to check the retractor relay, replace the brushes, starter bushings, in order to fix the breakdowns with our own hands and correctly assemble the car starter.

There are only 2 ways to check starter malfunctions: according to characteristic symptoms and according to the results of troubleshooting after disassembly. The main causes of breakdowns and their symptoms.

Without removing the starter from the car, you can reliably check only a poor contact and the fact of a malfunction of the control circuit of the retractor relay. If the starter does not respond when the key is turned to the Start position, use a screwdriver to bridge the power terminals of the solenoid relay directly. An operation of the starter will indicate a malfunction in the control circuit or the traction relay itself.

If you know how to use a multimeter, in the DC current measurement mode, check if the voltage comes to the control terminal after turning the ignition key to the Start position. If the voltage comes in, but the retractor does not work (there is no characteristic click), the traction relay needs to be repaired or replaced.

Before disassembling, we recommend that you study the device and the principle of operation of the car starter. Also, when repairing, it is important to understand the principle of operation and diagnostic methods of the retractor relay, starter bendix.

Abrasion of brushes that wear out due to tight pressure on the rotating armature. Wear can be assessed visually or with a caliper. It is enough to compare the thickness of the new brushes with the worn out elements.

Wear on collector plates. The brushes wear off much faster than the armature contact plates, but even after a few hundred thousand kilometers they can become unusable. The degree of wear is determined by the depth of the groove that results from friction with the brushes.If the brushes do not fit tightly at the moment of rotation of the armature, a spark discharge may appear, provoking burnout and further exfoliation of parts of the lamellas. Among other defects that arise as a result of beating and axial play of the armature shaft are ovality, displacement of the friction zone of the brushes.

Violation of the insulation of the collector contacts, leading to a breakdown to the mass of the armature body; turn-to-turn closure.

Worn bushings fixing the armature shaft. Critical depletion of bronze or copper-graphite bushings leads to the beating of the armature shaft, as a result of which the copper-graphite brushes fail much faster, and uneven wear of the collector is observed. Also, the wear of the bushings can cause displacement of the armature plates, which leads to turn-to-turn closure.

Worn or incorrect selection of distance washers to prevent axial play of the armature shaft.

Burnout of the contact plate of the solenoid relay. Burnout of the winding, turn-to-turn closure of the solenoid coil.

Worn armature shaft gear.

Removing magnets from the starter housing.

Fracture of the terminal of the positive wire going from the power terminal of the retractor to the brush. Sometimes the terminals, due to their location in a place with an aggressive environment, corrode strongly.

Operations, which in most cases are limited to self-repairing a starter:

replacement of the brush assembly. We have already considered how to replace the starter brushes with our own hands, so we will not dwell on this;
cleaning the working area of the collector with fine-grained emery paper;
lubrication of the planetary gearbox, the armature shaft at the point of movement of the plug of the solenoid relay;
complete cleaning of all parts from wear products of graphite brushes and collectors, dirt.

Many manufacturers do not provide for the repair and maintenance of the solenoid relay, so flare it to disassemble it. This can be done only for the purpose of cleaning with sandpaper or a file of the contact areas of the terminal bolts, plate. If a turn-to-turn short circuit or a breakdown on the case is detected, we recommend that you prefer to replace it with your own hands. We also find the idea of repairing the collector lamellas and rewinding the starter armature very dubious. For widespread starter models, such a repair is simply unprofitable, since it is often easier to find a serviceable used part for disassembly or even buy a new launcher.

Before removing the terminals for repair or replacement of the starter, be sure to remove the terminal from the negative battery terminal.
When checking the starter removed from the vehicle, fix it securely in a vice.
Even to rotate the armature without engaging with the flywheel crown, a considerable current is needed, therefore, when checking after repair, do not use thin wires and ensure reliable contact on the power terminals.
You can find the tolerance limits for axial, radial play, and the minimum collector diameter in the technical documentation. Even before starting the repair, we recommend that you find out the model of the starter, which should be indicated in the identification marking on the body.
When assembling, follow the sequence of installing the spacer washers to limit the axial play. In order to assemble the starter correctly after repairs with your own hands, mark and take photos during the disassembly process.
Only the planetary gear unit needs to be lubricated. For these purposes, CV joint grease is well suited. Never lubricate the working surface of the copper-graphite bushings. The grease will collect dust, thus transforming into an abrasive paste.

The armature shaft play should be checked before disassembly. To do this, just rotate the shaft itself radially and axially with your fingers. With a significant backlash, it is necessary not only to replace the bushings, but also to measure the output on the shaft itself, since in case of critical wear, limiting the repair only by replacing the bushing will not bring much result. You can measure the axial play with a vernier caliper.A dial indicator with a tripod is used to accurately check the radial play.The video shows a simple way to check turn-to-turn ignition. The essence of the diagnosis is to connect one of the contacts of the light bulb to the armature shaft. The second contact should be drawn along the collector lamellas. If there is no breakdown to the case, the lamp will not light up.

When buying your first car, the car enthusiast must be prepared for the fact that he will face many new challenges and challenges. After all, no matter how perfect the device of your car is, it will still fail someday, since nothing is eternal. And here you need to repair your "iron horse". It's great if there is a car service nearby where real professionals work. But there are also cases of breakdowns in the wilderness, where not even the phone can catch. What to do in this case? Rely on your own skills and techniques for servicing the vehicle, which you should definitely start getting immediately after buying your first car. Having mastered the basic operations and procedures for servicing the vehicle, you will feel much more confident, especially on long journeys.

In addition, the maintenance and repair of a car is quite costly. Therefore, your own skills will also help you save a considerable amount of money. At the very least, you need to deal with the most basic operations. One of these operations is starter repair.

A starter is a structural element of a car, without which it is impossible to start a car. It is this element that starts the engine by spinning the crankshaft. Structurally, an automobile starter consists of the following elements:

1. Solenoid relay - designed to synchronize the entire starter. When the driver turns the ignition key, current is applied to the relay and forms an electromagnetic field. After that, the relay rotates the on lever and clings to the flywheel gear. Then the current flows to the starter windings.

2. Anchor - designed to rotate the bendix gears. When the engine starts, the armature returns to its original position using a return spring and opens the contacts.

3. Bendix (freewheel) - needed to control the speed of rotation of the shaft. The drive shaft must rotate faster than the driven shaft.

4. Brushes and brush holders - are intended to supply voltage to the armature plates. They also increase engine power.

According to experts, if a car enthusiast was able to repair the starter, then any breakdown will be up to him. Why do they say that? It's just that the starter on any car is installed in an extremely inconvenient place in the engine compartment. Therefore, its removal for an ordinary car owner can be equated to the real "feat of Hercules". In most vehicles, the starter motor is located on the driver's side just below the engine. To find it, you need to do the following:

1. Raise the bonnet.

2. Turn the ignition key (you can ask someone to do this).

3. Listen and determine where the buzzing is coming from. It is in that place that the starter is located.

Since the starter is located in a very inconvenient place, in order to remove it, you need a lot of patience and a set of automotive tools (different wrenches, including those with flexible extension cords). It is best to dismantle the starter in the inspection hole, since without the inspection hole it will be very difficult to move under the vehicle. Steps for dismantling a car starter:

1. Disconnect all battery terminals.

2. Unbolt electrical cables that conduct current from the solenoid pins and from the terminals on the starter.

3. Remove engine cover.

4. Tighten the lower and upper nuts securing the starter to the engine compartment.

5. Remove starter.

Why is it necessary to remove the starter from the car?

The fact is that the diagnostics and repair of the starter is very difficult (and for beginners it is simply impossible) to carry out while it is installed on the car. But when the starter has already been dismantled and lies calmly on the table, nothing will prevent the motorist from performing the necessary operations. When dismantling the starter, we recommend that you remember or write down the order of all work. It's good if you lay out all the parts in the order they were removed. This will help you not to get confused with the reassembly and installation of the starter on the car.

During its operation, the starter becomes very dirty due to its location and the use of graphite brushes. So whether you managed to find a breakdown in the starter or failed, in any case, you need to thoroughly clean the starter itself and all its parts from contamination, and also check the integrity of all components (especially the windings). And only after such manipulations can you start reassembling and reassembling the starter on the car. The starter is mounted in the same steps as dismantling, only in the reverse order.

The service life of an automobile engine is much longer than that of a starter. So, whatever one may say, sooner or later the starter will have to be repaired or changed, and you need to be ready for this. But you shouldn't rush to completely change the device. After all, firstly, the reason may not even be in it (but, for example, in the battery or flywheel). And, secondly, it will be much cheaper to repair the starter.

Those motorists who are used to servicing and repairing their car on their own will sooner or later want to know how to repair the starter. In order for the repair of the starter to be as efficient as possible and as efficient as possible, it is first necessary to determine the causes of its breakdown.

The most common starter breakdowns:

1. Breakdown of the starter retractor relay. Because of this, the bendix gear will not feed to mesh with the flywheel splines.

2. The wear of the graphite brushes, with the help of which electricity is transmitted to the armature, as in many electric motors (in fact, the starter is the electric motor). And over time, graphite brushes try and there is a need to replace them.

3. Starter bearings worn. This can be diagnosed by strong vibrations and destruction of the rest of the starter mechanism, although the starter will continue to work.

To check the functionality of the removed starter, a charged battery must be used. The mass is connected to the case, and the positive wire is searched for malfunctions. When the "plus" is connected to the contact of the solenoid relay, it should work and extend the bendix. If the retractor relay does not work, then it will need to be replaced or repaired (malfunction in the retractor relay). In most cases, it will be necessary to replace the solenoid relay, since most of these devices are non-separable.

When the positive wire is connected to the post located after the solenoid relay, the starter should start to operate. If this does not happen, then you will have to completely disassemble the device and repair the starter with your own hands. Or, as an option, take it to a car service (if the newbie still somehow cope with the replacement of the retractor relay, then it is unlikely to overhaul the entire starter).

When the starter is operating, the greatest load falls on the bendix gear teeth, which are in engagement with the flywheel teeth. Therefore, after several years of car operation, these teeth are simply erased and become the reason that the engine cannot be started or it starts irregularly. This problem can be solved only by completely replacing the bendix gears or the flywheel crown.

Remember, very often the reason for the inoperability of the starter is the contamination of the contacts of its constituent parts. So keep a close eye on the cleanliness of both the starter and all other components of your vehicle.

At the first suspicion of a malfunction, do not postpone the repair of the starter on your car, since without this element you can simply stop somewhere in the wilderness and it will be extremely difficult to get out of there on your own.

Significantly, the car was born without a starter - the engines were started with a crank, and this was considered the norm. Actually, the cars of the dawn of motorization had enough other, more pressing problems, against which the rotation of the handle before the trip was not the most significant. However, heavy and unsafe manual starting was still an obvious bottleneck for the early self-run carts, and in 1911, American mechanical engineer Charles Kettering proposed an electric starter design. And already in 1912, the first car started by Kettering's invention, the Cadillac Model 30, was produced.

However, despite this, the technical revolution did not take place - which can be traced at least to the famous Ford T, which, being released in millions of copies, was wound up with a handle until 1919 ... Actually, the reason was in no small measure that Charles Kettering, crowned as the inventor of the starter, offered Cadillac a completely different design that is used everywhere today!

Its design was complex and unreliable, since the starter motor did not disconnect from the crankshaft after starting the engine, but switched to generator mode, and the leading American automakers of that era were cool about the idea. The reason for supporting the invention of Kettering by Cadillac lay in the personality of the founder of the company, Henry Leland, whose close friend in 1910 was seriously injured by a return jerk of the crank when igniting too early and as a result died ...

Leland vowed that an alternative to manual launch would be found, and welcomed Kettering with open arms, whose starter in the Model 30 advertising brochure had snobbishly called “World Wonder” - “a world miracle”!

The technical mini-revolution in the automobile industry, thanks to the starter, nevertheless happened - but four years later, in 1916. Namely, when another American engineer Vincent Hugo Bendix proposed to divide the generator and starter into two separate units, and connect the latter to the engine only for a short time - using an overrunning clutch, known to this day as "Bendix".

All car starters are very similar to each other.Understood in the device of any - consider, you will understand all. Whether Matiz or Kamaz ...

The basis of any starter is a simple electric motor. The current is supplied to the rotor (also known as the "armature") by powerful copper-graphite brushes, and the magnetic force of the stator is provided either by electromagnets or by permanent magnets. The electrical circuits of most modern starters do not have fundamental differences - all starters are connected to the car's electrical system at three points - the power plus from the battery, the mass through the body, and the control plus from the ignition switch. In fact, only the power, expressed in dimensions, differs.

On the cylindrical body of the starter, there is a smaller "barrel" - this is the so-called "solenoid relay". It performs two functions - in fact, it supplies power to the starter, having powerful contacts that can withstand currents of hundreds of amperes, and also engages the starter shaft with the engine shaft through a rocker lever and an overrunning bendix clutch.

This clutch works on the principle of a classic bicycle hub - that is, the starter can turn the engine, but the already started engine will not “drag along” the starter, spinning at high revs that are destructive for it.

More noticeable differences between one starter model and another are in the design of the front rotor support. The classic device is when the rotor axis is installed in the starter on two bearings - support bushings made of bronze-graphite alloy. These bushings are located, respectively, in the front and rear starter covers.In principle, this "two-support" design is the most reliable and correct one. But often there are "single support" starters (in the garage jargon they are often not too correctly called UNSUPPORT), in which the rear support of the rotor shaft is, as it should be, in the rear cover of the starter, but the front cover is absent altogether.There was a story ... The reason for this article was a curious episode that happened recently with a journalist, or rather, with your humble servant. I got it about a month ago, middle-aged, but cheap.In this case, the front support becomes the engine clutch housing or the gearbox housing, into which the support sleeve is pressed. The starter is installed in its place in the car - and the shaft is supported by two bushings, as it should. As a rule, such a solution is used in order to reduce the dimensions of the nodes, and in principle, as long as everything is in good order, it is no worse than the classic one. But if the front support bushing breaks in the gearbox housing, it is much more difficult to replace it - this is done by car and sometimes in very uncomfortable conditions. Whereas in a two-point starter, the bushings are changed at the workbench, where everything is in sight and easily accessible.Another fundamental design moment that distinguishes starter models from each other is a gearbox. Rather, its absence or presence, and if present, the type. The fact is that the transmission of torque from the starter rotor to the flywheel of the motor can be carried out directly or through a gearbox built into the starter.The "direct" option is when the bendix gear, which rotates the engine flywheel ring, is located directly on the starter rotor axis. Such a design is quite archaic, characterized by excessive dimensions and weight, as well as a huge current consumption, but it still occurs. Gear starters are much more efficient, lighter and more compact. In them, the moment is transmitted to the flywheel crown either through one intermediate gear, or through a planetary gear with even greater deceleration."Planetary" starters are most common today. With them, a battery is enough to start the engine, almost half the capacity and starting current than was required for the same motor with the starter operating directly.

From theory, let's move on to a real unit that requires repair.In our case, the symptoms of the malfunction were as follows - the starter began to rotate the motor very sluggishly, regardless of the state of charge of the battery. At the same time, being dismantled from the engine and connected by starting wires to the battery, it rotated vigorously. The well-oiled motor, at the very least, managed to start even with such a sluggish rotation, but at some point the starter finally got up and emitted smoke ...After removing the back cover, a couple of tablespoons of black dust spilled out of the starter housing. Therefore, the first diagnosis is brushes. We take out the brush assembly, remove the case with magnets (which auto electricians call among themselves "the bulb"), and take out the rotor.After blowing all the parts with compressed air and rinsing in gasoline, it became clear that the brushes were almost completely worn out, and their remains were almost shorted out with graphite powder. The force of the springs pressing the remnants of the brushes has weakened, the contact resistance has increased, the brush holders and springs have warmed up until they turn blue, melt, close the coils and hang the brushes.We take the brush assembly in our hands as a sample and go to the nearest office for the repair of starters and generators, where we ask you to pick up a similar part. The complete brush assembly costs us 400 rubles, which, given the cost of a new starter from 4 to 5 thousand, is quite inexpensive!We clean the rotor and assess the condition of the collector - the slip ring on which the brushes work. Wear is visible to the naked eye (shown by arrows in the photo), but the collector can still work after replacing the brushes. We do without a groove, cleaning it with fine sandpaper - that's enough.In general, wear on the rotor manifold is a serious problem. In principle, under normal conditions, the collector of any starter is able to change a couple of sets of brushes, but if its contact lamellas are very thinned, the rotor goes to scrap. This part is expensive, it is not easy to purchase it separately, and it is only rational to change it for free - if a similar starter with a live rotor turns up from old junk stocks from your own or from friends ... For with a completely killed collector, there is usually no living space on the starter.We examine the overrunning clutch, otherwise - "Bendix" (the name, by the way, came from the manufacturer Bendix). We rotate its gear manually. It spins in one direction, not in the other. We move back and forth along the axis of the shaft - it walks easily, without jamming. In our case, everything is ok with the "Bendix", it should be so.Meanwhile, the failure of the overrunning clutch is also a serious malfunction, since it is easy to buy the necessary modification only for popular models of starters - problems can arise with the search for a "bendix" ... which it slips without blocking when rotating in the working direction. As a result, the starter buzzes and turns, and the crankshaft is stationary. This malfunction is easily diagnosed - the "bendix" is manually rotated in both directions, while it should only rotate in one direction. In an amicable way, the overrunning clutch in this case must be replaced, since it has a non-separable design. Although some enthusiasts expand its body, stretch the "worn out" springs, cut new rollers from hardened rods, but the result of this fuss is often short-lived.The inline "four" 3.2 TD of the 4M41 series is far from the worst representative of the family of modern turbodiesels. Having pulled two and a half tons of Japanese iron in the face of a 2006 Mitsubishi Pajero Wagon in 10 years, this one.Since the rotor is removed, along the way, we assess the condition of the planetary gearbox. We take out the gears, rinse with gasoline, inspect. Everything is in order, there are no complaints about the gearbox. Apply a light layer of CV joint grease to the gears and their bearings.Note that the gearbox is a fairly reliable starter assembly.It happens that the axes of the satellite gears are cut off or the outer toothed ring bursts - but this happens rarely and most often due to initial defects in the metal or its processing, and not due to the loads during daily work. For example, in planetary starter gearboxes, the outer toothed ring called the "crown" is often made of plastic and is quite durable (in our case, as you can see in the photo below, the "crown" is metal).As a lubricant for the gearbox, ideally, special compositions for planetary gears or special low-temperature greases are required, but they are not cheap and rare - it is irrational to buy them for a one-time job, where you will need one gram of the entire expensive tube. Therefore, it is quite acceptable to use a common grease for CV joints or a good imported grease for hub bearings. The main thing is to apply it in a very small amount - you do not need to stuff the gearbox! The abundance of lithol, strongly thickening in the frost, squeezing between the teeth of the gears, causes an excessive current surge and even threatens to break the plastic "crown" ...Now there is more cunning work to be done. It would be unreasonable not to assess the condition of the contacts of the solenoid relay, since the starter is removed and gutted. But if for disassembling the starter we needed only keys for 8, 10, and a Phillips screwdriver, then it will be possible to open the traction relay only with a 100-watt soldering iron. Wires leave the relay, pass through the contact caps in the cover, and are soldered outside. Therefore, after unscrewing the two Phillips screws of the cover, it will be possible to lift it only by alternately heating the solder on the two contacts shown in the photo by arrows. In fact, this is a simple procedure, and it can be done many times if necessary.We are lucky - contacts are in order. Slightly freshen them up by rubbing them with a lump of sandpaper, clamped in the "platypuses". After that, we alternately heat the pass-through caps on the lid with a soldering iron, and sharply slam the lid on the table - by inertia, the remnants of molten solder fly out of the caps, the holes are released, and now the lid can be put back on the protruding wires and soldered back.

Video (click to play).

By the way, a serious mistake of car owners who carry out repairs and maintenance of the starter with their own hands is the lubrication of the retractor relay core. In this unit, lubrication is not needed at all - at most, you can slightly smear the core and its socket with engine oil and wipe it almost dry - purely for the sake of reducing the likelihood of corrosion. And any greases in this unit are contraindicated - in the cold, even the best and cold-resistant ones can jam the core. The gap of the solenoid switch must be clean and dry!