bigdaddy87547

1995 Toyota 4runner, 2wd,auto.

after searching the forum, i haven't found the answer that i was looking for. This has been kind of ongoing, but today after driving 15 miles from work, i decided to stop my buddies work. when i came outside to turn on my truck...click. I AM AWARE THIS IS A STARTER ISSUE. I ALSO REFUSE TO PURCHASE A NEW OR REMAN STARTER.

I pull it out, took it apart, and cleaned most of the parts with electrical parts cleaner. the motor has rust spots all over it.(i believe it was the motor, the big cylinder that spins). I also emmory clothed it to get the rust spots off. When looking at the conacts, the side where the positive wire connects to, the contact was worn only on that side. (the screw on this side has splines in it). after talking with my buddies one of them said, a few years ago, he took a ladies starter contacts, bent them upwards a tad so they would have better contact, because of being worn so much. The brushes have alot of meat on them. anyway i did this tonight. I will go to toyota tomorrow for the contacts anyway.

after this, i put the starter on the tester and it failed. just out of curiosity, i hooked a jumper cable a battery, to the solenoid cable with a test lead from the spade to the battery connector on the starter. She spun her little heart out. I then proceeded to test the starter again......SHE PASSED 5 TIMES IN A ROW.

I then proceeded to put the starter back into the 4runner. All connections hooked up........nothing but a click. Then i hooked that same test lead from the solenoid spade to the battery connector on the starter and turned the key on and bingo, fires right up.

after many more tries, the starter will indeed fire up with key on, test lead connected, and so on. I did just so happen to find 2 loose ground connections on my a/c compressor.

So my end result before getting new contacts is, with attempting to turn the truck over with the key, the starter works intermittently, but jumpering it, EVERY SINGLE TIME.

..................Why is this?????????????????????

with those of you who had similar problems, was the starter contacts the solution?

I Personally want this to be the only problem that i have with my 4runner.

drshoebocks

You certainly seem to know what your doing. I'm going through a similar issue on a friends BMW, but her's only appears when it drives in the wet. I'm curious about the condition of your battery.

notanymore

are you sure its not a wiring problem going from the starter to the battery? iv had an issue where my battery terminals were clean and tight but they wernt making good contact and it would just click, but the starter would work just fine if i jumped it past the battery contact.

bigdaddy87547

I know my battery is good. The connections are tight. I do need to replace my ground coming from the negative to positive. when i first got my truck, this was extremely loose. after being broke for a couple of weeks, i decided to try to resolve this issue. at the moment, i didnt have a thick gauge wire, so i took two small wires and parelled them to the fender. no problem until now.

as far as i know, i need to search extremely well and make sure that all my grounds are tight. it surprised me that when bypassing the ignition switch, that i noticed the sparking.....from the a/c compressor mount. To be honest, i would no be surprised if i found another bolt loose that could be tied with the grounding of my engine. from the battery, i have no more than 3 1/2 feet of positive cable to my starter. The starter grounds when bolted into the bell housing.