Starter Motor Brushes
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Vanny
- Merseyside resident
- Posts: 3582
- Joined: Tue May 17, 2005 11:48 pm
- Location: BXProject
- My Cars: BX 16v Ph2 - Jazz
BX 16v Ph2 - XPO - x 82
- Contact:
Starter Motor Brushes
Anyone know where i might be able to buy starter motor brushes for Valeo starter motors? My auto electrician was keen on the idea of selling me brushes unless he could rip me off with fitting charges, or so it would seem!
Everything you wanted to know about Valeo starter motors but were afraid to ask.
http://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/showth ... post212946
I got mine from an Auto electrician for A$41 a set.
Can GSF supply by any chance??
Alan S
http://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/showth ... post212946
I got mine from an Auto electrician for A$41 a set.
Can GSF supply by any chance??
Alan S
By the time you're old enough to know it all, you can't remember why you were learning.
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Vanny
- Merseyside resident
- Posts: 3582
- Joined: Tue May 17, 2005 11:48 pm
- Location: BXProject
- My Cars: BX 16v Ph2 - Jazz
BX 16v Ph2 - XPO - x 82
- Contact:
Well unless you linked to the wrong posts, then thats not really everything about Valeo starters! Basically i have generally refused to open them up because i cant get bushes, but in this case my mate with the 1.4 St Tropez kinda asked very nicely so i did! Soaked in lots specail magic fluid (electrical cleaner) and continued stripping. Basically the bushes are warn out and a lot of deposits on the brush path on the actual motor! Turns out the solenoid was perfectly fine, just the motor bushes them selves causing a short circuit.
Cabling is fine, battery is fine, crank speed okay when it fire, but as i'd suspected the bushes where simply warn out! Infact all the cars that i have seen resently have fine cabling and fine crank over once running, personally im starting to wonder if the whole 'knackered' wiring thing is affecting winter climates as much as it does where there is occasional sun!
Cabling is fine, battery is fine, crank speed okay when it fire, but as i'd suspected the bushes where simply warn out! Infact all the cars that i have seen resently have fine cabling and fine crank over once running, personally im starting to wonder if the whole 'knackered' wiring thing is affecting winter climates as much as it does where there is occasional sun!
Well, I stripped it down to the last nut and bolt but I didn't touch the solenoid because it is one of those things that if you pull it apart without breaking it, you'll finish it off when you reassemble it. It's assembled at the factory and then "indented" just behind the insulating block that the terminals are connected to.
Ambient temperature isn't going to affect the performance of the wiring in fact if anyone is going to have problems, I would imagine those spraying salty water up onto the connectors could be more susceptible than us, however, if you test the wiring without load, I doubt you'll find much problem. It has to be tested under load and the cause is what is normally referred to as a "catch 22 situation" in that each problem contributes to the other.
It may start as a dirty connection in the multi plug or a M/FM connector (common fault) which causes the voltage to drop to the solenoid. The solenoid not being solidlyy seated will cause voltage drop within the starter motor feeding down to the brushes, the brushes begin to arc on the commutator which damages the commutator and this causes the starter to draw more amps so that returns as dropped voltage to the solenoid and so it goes on.
By tidying up the wiring, by-passing the multi plug if need be, fitting new terminals and replacing any suspect wiring, then running the power to the solenoid via a relay once you've sorted the problem within the actual starter, will give you a starter that spins better than it did when the car was new.
My starter still had meat on the brushes and I could have possibly re-used them, but the parts kit that came included new brushes and as I said in that write up, slightly different springs. This was easy to understand when it was seen that the brushes were worn at around 15 degrees, so obviously the springs wereexerting too much pressure on one side and if you look at the commutator, you can see the marks on it from all the arcing.
The point I was making was that the brushes are readily available as a spare part and I think I either photographed or quoted the kit numbers in that write up, but as there are a swag of brush kits available, you need to pull the exact model of the starter (complete with variant numbers) off the actual starter itself.
GSF are Valeo dealers and I'm sure they should be able to get the bits without too much trouble.
Rest assured though, that reardless of what the wiring may look like, if the system of modifying the wiring I have outlined isn't followed, you will get an action replay. If you remember correctly, I kept ranting at Chris White to sort the wiring on his BX and he kept insisting it was just the starter motor or the solenoid. He fitted a new one, then I think another, and now Andy the new owner has still had even more problems including a new ignition switch. That car is a typical example of what I have been trying to tell everyone for years.
Alan S
Ambient temperature isn't going to affect the performance of the wiring in fact if anyone is going to have problems, I would imagine those spraying salty water up onto the connectors could be more susceptible than us, however, if you test the wiring without load, I doubt you'll find much problem. It has to be tested under load and the cause is what is normally referred to as a "catch 22 situation" in that each problem contributes to the other.
It may start as a dirty connection in the multi plug or a M/FM connector (common fault) which causes the voltage to drop to the solenoid. The solenoid not being solidlyy seated will cause voltage drop within the starter motor feeding down to the brushes, the brushes begin to arc on the commutator which damages the commutator and this causes the starter to draw more amps so that returns as dropped voltage to the solenoid and so it goes on.
By tidying up the wiring, by-passing the multi plug if need be, fitting new terminals and replacing any suspect wiring, then running the power to the solenoid via a relay once you've sorted the problem within the actual starter, will give you a starter that spins better than it did when the car was new.
My starter still had meat on the brushes and I could have possibly re-used them, but the parts kit that came included new brushes and as I said in that write up, slightly different springs. This was easy to understand when it was seen that the brushes were worn at around 15 degrees, so obviously the springs wereexerting too much pressure on one side and if you look at the commutator, you can see the marks on it from all the arcing.
The point I was making was that the brushes are readily available as a spare part and I think I either photographed or quoted the kit numbers in that write up, but as there are a swag of brush kits available, you need to pull the exact model of the starter (complete with variant numbers) off the actual starter itself.
GSF are Valeo dealers and I'm sure they should be able to get the bits without too much trouble.
Rest assured though, that reardless of what the wiring may look like, if the system of modifying the wiring I have outlined isn't followed, you will get an action replay. If you remember correctly, I kept ranting at Chris White to sort the wiring on his BX and he kept insisting it was just the starter motor or the solenoid. He fitted a new one, then I think another, and now Andy the new owner has still had even more problems including a new ignition switch. That car is a typical example of what I have been trying to tell everyone for years.
Alan S
By the time you're old enough to know it all, you can't remember why you were learning.
I rebuilt an alternator a few years back and the only part I could not obtain was brushes! Every local autospark refused to sell me brushes! I got the same impression as you, they want to keep the work for themselves.
I eventualy made brushes myself by getting some from a domestic appliance shop and filing them to size! They are still working in my BX.
I eventualy made brushes myself by getting some from a domestic appliance shop and filing them to size! They are still working in my BX.
I think this proves the point about what a rip off it is that these auto sparkies are pulling with these things.
I have had cause in the past few months to need brushes for the fans on the Xantia as well as for this starter motor and in both cases they were only too happy to sell them to me (albeit for a hefty price for what they are) but with the Xantia, they just did a measure up on them and ordered them but not before they had pulled boxes of them out and rummaged through them, and in the case of the BX brushes, he simply opened a catalogue and supplied them based on the model info as stamped on the actual starter body.
As I say, you would reckon that any Valeo dealer like GSF should be able to get access to them. Once the word gets out that they are available from somewhere like that, these auto sparkies would fall into line to get some of the business you'd reckon.
I still think it's going to be worth the effort to track them down from somewhere.
Has anyone ever asked Dave Woollard if he has ever sourced them? He seems to be a man of many talents when it comes to DIY and Cits.
Alan S
I have had cause in the past few months to need brushes for the fans on the Xantia as well as for this starter motor and in both cases they were only too happy to sell them to me (albeit for a hefty price for what they are) but with the Xantia, they just did a measure up on them and ordered them but not before they had pulled boxes of them out and rummaged through them, and in the case of the BX brushes, he simply opened a catalogue and supplied them based on the model info as stamped on the actual starter body.
As I say, you would reckon that any Valeo dealer like GSF should be able to get access to them. Once the word gets out that they are available from somewhere like that, these auto sparkies would fall into line to get some of the business you'd reckon.
I still think it's going to be worth the effort to track them down from somewhere.
Has anyone ever asked Dave Woollard if he has ever sourced them? He seems to be a man of many talents when it comes to DIY and Cits.
Alan S
By the time you're old enough to know it all, you can't remember why you were learning.