As I mentioned a few days back, the starter motor on the tractor has been playing up. With hindsight I suspect it has actually been close to failing for some time. Anyhow, I had a hunt online for possible replacements and found one on Ebay for less than £100. Quite possibly I could have had the existing one rebuild (or potentially even done it myself), but it didn’t seem likely to be any cheaper an option, particularly as the tractor sees a fair bit of use at this time of year.
Fortunately, having removed the side panel, the starter is pretty easy to get to.
Disconnect the positive terminal of the battery, unplug/unbolt the two wires on the motor and then it’s just two nuts that need removing, though one of those is a little awkward to get at. I used a ?” socket with an extension that was long enough to clear the motor body. That done, the starter just pulls off.
I removed the replacement from its packaging and had a slight worry. They’re quite different sizes and I don’t think the bendix gears even had the same numbers of teeth.
Following the advice of The Beautiful South I opted to carry on regardless and in proper Haynes manual fashion, reassembly was the reverse of disassembly.
I was half-expecting that the motor would just spin on its own and fail to engage with the ring gear on the flywheel, but as it happened the engine fired up first turn of the key, more easily than it has done for ages.
Now back to the mowing…
