[rph74]

Ok, I just got done replacing the starter contacts on my 99 Land Cruiser the other night, and I thought I'd share some info to others for the future. My car was difficult to start cold. When I turned the key, I would hear the solenoid engage, but the starter would not fire at all. After 2 or 3 turns of the key, the car would eventually start up fine. I read from others on this board that you must act immediately or risk ruining your starter AND your alternator. The contacts cost me $25, so it is very cheap to do this job. It took me and a friend 6½ hours to do this job, but that was mainly because we had no info and we were flying by the seat of our pants. If I had to do it again, it would probably take 3 hours or less.
It helps greatly to have an assistant, though it is not necessary. The intake manifold must be removed to access the starter. You will have to climb up into the engine bay several times, and it helps to have someone to hold the light, hand tools, and to hand that intake manifold off to when you get it off. Sorry I didn't take pics as I went along. Here goes:

Disconnect the negative battery terminal first!

1. Remove the V-Bank cover held in by 4 10mm bolts.

2. Remove the intake assembly. Remove the cover for the air filter held in by snap clips, unscrew the clamps that attach to the throttle body, and the airbox. Unplug the MAS connector at the airbox, and unscrew the 2 10mm bolts that bolt the intake assembly to the passenger side valve cover. You will also have to detach 3 hoses that go to the intake assembly to remove it. You will also want to remove the air filter, so you use the air filter housing to climb into the car.

3. Now take pictures on all sides of your intake manifold (thanks landtank)! This will help as a reference when you want to put everything back together.

4. Disconnect the accelerator cable. You will need a 14 mm open end wrench on one end, and either another 14mm wrench or some pliers to hole the bolt on the other end. Loosen the bolt on one side, and then you can pull the cable up, and slide the cable off of the housing it connects to.

5. Disconnect the throttle body from the intake manifold. It is held in by 2 12mm bolts and 2 12mm nuts. You may have to tap it a little to loosen it from the intake manifold.

6. Now disconnect all of the hoses that attach to the intake manifold. Just look around the manifold and it is readily apparent which ones you will need to disconnect. The only hidden thing to disconnect is a ground wire that bolts to the back of the manifold. This wire is on the drivers side near a coolant pipe. You will also have to unbolt a wiring assembly from the intake manifold.

7. It would be easiest to remove the fuel pressure regulator from the drivers side fuel rail, but I didn't have the right size wrench, so I just disconnected the fuel hose from the fuel filter and took the hose with the manifold. Warning! Fuel will spill!

8. Once all of the hoses are disconnected, remove the bolts that connect the intake manifold to the block. There are 3 bolts on each side, and 2 nuts on each side. There are none in the back to worry about. You will need a long extension, and the bolts are 12mm. You will also need long needlenose pliers (or a magnetic socket) to pull the bolts off, as they are in a tight space.

9. Now pull the intake manifold off. We did it by one of us climbing into the engine bay, pulling it off, and handing it off to the other guy. Cover the holes on the cylinder head, you don't want any bolts or tools to fall in there!!

10. You will now see the starter sitting on the block. It is held in by 2 14mm mounting bolts which face the back of the car. We removed them by climbing into the engine bay, laying down a towel to rest a knee on and unbolted the bolts. The bolt on the left of the starter is visible, and the one on the right is hidden. The one on the right is a bitch to get to. We got it by removing a 10mm bolt that holds some wiring, moved the wires out of the way, and fit a wrench and extension on the 14mm bolt.

11. You will now need to remove the 12mm bolt that holds the yellow wiring harness to the starter. It is on the back side of the starter also. Then unplug the connector, and remove the bolted down ground wire. You should now be able to pull the starter off of the car.

12. Once the starter is off the rest is easy. You can leave the cylindrical portion of the starter alone, you will unbolt the cover on the short side of the starter with 3 (8mm I believe) bolts. Remove the plunger with spring and set it aside. Now you will see the contacts.

13. Using a 14mm socket, unbolt the contacts on each side (one side at a time) and pay CLOSE attention to the order in which everything was installed. I did this easily by keeping everything together and copying. You will probably see that the contacts are worn down from the plunger hitting it over time. The new contacts will look much thicker than the old ones. Make sure to clean out all of the dust in that housing. Also clean the plunger off too. Make sure to install the spring with the plunger when putting it all back together.

14. Installation is the reverse of removal-don't you hate that?

15. When putting the intake manifold back in, we had to remove the passenger side bracket that gets in the way. It was getting late and we were getting impatient. It also helped to remove a bolt that holds wiring together on the back passenger side, near were the last nut holds down the intake manifold. By moving this wiring just a little, we were able to drop the intake manifold right on.

Use your pictures to help you put it all together. Sorry I didn't get pics while I went along, and I'm sure I left something out here, anyone who has done this feel free to add info. I have pics of the starter contacts, and the intake manifold before taking it all apart.

Chris,

Springfield, MO

[rph74]

This is the bolt that I removed to move the wiring harness out of the way. It made it much easier to reinstall the intake manifold.

[rph74]

This is the bracket I removed to make it easier to reinstall the intake manifold. I'm not sure what purpose it serves, but it was getting late, and it made reinstallation much easier!

[rph74]

Here's a pic of the worn out contacts.

[rph74]

This is the area where the hidden ground wire is on the back side of the intake manifold. It is not pictured, but this gives you an idea of where it is.

[Landpimp]

GREAT info/write up, THANKS!

the bracket is for lifting the motor I think.

Junk, please put this in the FAQ

John H

[rph74]

A pic of everything before taking it apart.

[rph74]

and another

[rph74]

When doing the contacts, make sure you put everything in the exact same order that it came!

[drexx]

23Mar2004 (UTC -8)

Great stuff dude! I'm saving this page for later reference...

[drexx]

25Mar2004 (UTC -8)

The "Dear Doctor" subscriber and writer should have read this ih8mud article!
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnis...ews-columnists

[80and100cruisers]

UZJ100....not FJ

-Matt

[rph74]

Thanks, I updated the heading to make it clearer.

[mabrodis]

Edit: Hey guys, sorry about the broken picture links, I just fixed all of those (and e-mailed several people the pics who asked for them)...Good Luck...-Mark

Chris, great writeup. A week or so ago I used this writeup to change the contacts on a '99 Cruiser...I took some pics if anyone is curious.

I took several pics of the sides of the engine before removing the intake. It really wasn't near as hard as I thought, and connecting all the hoses was not tough at all to figure out even without ever looking at these pictures. One thing I think that was left out of the writeup was disconnecting the electrical clips off from each injector, they just unclip, I had to use pliers since I couldn't get on them good enough with my fingers. The ends of the intake are what has the studs, so each side has the studs on the ends and 3 bolts in the middle like Chris mentioned. You will definetly want a magnetic picker-upper tool to fetch those nuts/bolt and also for putting them back in. I found out if you put a bolt/nut into the socket, then hold the magnetic thing right beside it, you can slide both down and get it started perfectly, that saved TONS of time.

The gaskets on each side (visible with the intake removed) are reusable, I was going to buy new ones, but CDan said they do not even replace them at the dealership so we just left them. You see the pile of leaves in there, we shop-vac'd all that out, and cleaned all the dirt from around the intake ports. I disconnected the incoming fuel line like Chris, by far the easiest way I think, you have to somewhat snake the hose out and back in, but very easy, take 10-15 seconds maybe.

The bolts for the actual starter are a PITA to get to. Well like Chris said the left one is not hard, but the right one is. For the right one I used a 3/8" ratchet, 3" extention and 14mm deep socket, reach back there pushing the wire bundles aside and slip the socket through the bundle (just the socket and extention, easiest IMO to not have the ratchet handle on here), wiggle that around until you're on the bolt. My socket never really got on it all that good, I think I was partially hitting on something else but I was on it enough. Also there are the bellhousing bolts slightly further down, so if you're really confused (we were) you may be trying on those, which are 17mm and therefore the 14mm feels to small, well then you're on the wrong bolt. Once the two starter bolts are removed you can move it slightly, enough to disconnect the incoming power wire (12mm wrench), you have to roll the starter a bit to the left, which is a pain, very little room to work in there. Then just unclip the other wire (small one from the ignition) and the whole thing should come out.

The starter contacts are functionally idential to a 80. Interesting the new contacts came with a little paper piece, I didn't know where that went, there was nothing like that at all in the factory ones, so I didn't put it in.

When putting it all back in you have to hold several things out of the way to drop the intake back on, somewhat of a pain but not bad with two people. We cleaned the throttle body a bit while it was disconnected (never removed it, just push it off to the side), it was very dirty, a ring of gunk around it and the intake was very dirty too, but we didn't want to deal with pulling that apart. I'm not sure what would make that so dirty, I was thinking bad gas, but no gas hits this, this is all just air, so I guess just dirty air. (This vehicle had about 85K miles in these pictures)

Throw everything back on, take a look at these pics if you get confused about what went where, but it really wasn't to bad.


















If these links don't work feel free to e-mail me: mabrodis@colorado4x4.net

[rph1974]

Glad to hear that this write up helped you! Thanks for adding the pics to the write up! Thanks for informing me of my omission.

[dnp]

Old post, but I have a question that wasn't addressed here:

Right or wrong, I'm about to tackle this job myself, but I need to know the torque settings and torque sequence for the intake manifold reinstallation........Do any of you have a FSM that you could check for me on this? Anything else I should know before getting involved in this job?

Thanks in advance.........

dnp

[dnp]

Originally Posted by mabrodis

................The bolts for the actual starter are a PITA to get to. Well like Chris said the left one is not hard, but the right one is. For the right one I used a 3/8" ratchet, 3" extention and 14mm deep socket, reach back there pushing the wire bundles aside and slip the socket through the bundle (just the socket and extention, easiest IMO to not have the ratchet handle on here), wiggle that around until you're on the bolt. My socket never really got on it all that good, I think I was partially hitting on something else but I was on it enough. Also there are the bellhousing bolts slightly further down, so if you're really confused (we were) you may be trying on those, which are 17mm and therefore the 14mm feels to small, well then you're on the wrong bolt. Once the two starter bolts are removed you can move it slightly, enough to disconnect the incoming power wire (12mm wrench), you have to roll the starter a bit to the left, which is a pain, very little room to work in there. Then just unclip the other wire (small one from the ignition) and the whole thing should come out............

Thanks to all before me who have done and documented this job. Your experiences have been quite helpful to me on my LX470(although I'm not yet finished with the job, I'll report any further difficulties).......now, for those who have yet to do it: the intake removal is no big job; however, removal of the starter is a BEAR! As the previous posts have said, the starter is located in the "V" of the V8. What I DIDN'T understand is that the starter mounting bolts are on the outside (transmission side) of the block! There are 3 mounting bolts (2 14mm bolts and 1 12mm bolt) The passenger side 14mm bolt is not really that hard to get, nor is the 12mm bolt in the middle, but I had one *^&%^& of a time getting to the driver's side 14mm bolt! As a matter of fact, I simply could not get to it from the engine bay. I tried every position, reach, etc., and I couldn't get a socket on it. The only way I could get to it was from below.

First, I removed the tray from underneath the truck. Then, reaching between the exhaust and transmission on the driver's side, I was able to feel around and locate the offending bolt. I tried several extension/socket combinations, but I ran into almost the same problem I was having up top. I then made a trip to the local Harbor Freight store to pick up as many inexpensive extensions, extensions with wobble ends, and u-joint couplings that I thought I could possibly need.........in the end, what worked for me was a combination of extensions making up about 4 feet in length, with the business end being made up of a wobble-ended extension, a u-joint, and a shallow 14mm socket. I ran the extensions over the crossmember and threaded it up to the bolt. With a little working, I was able to get it totally over the bolt and remove it.

The other hard part about removing the starter is that the wiring harness that connects to the starter - among other things - is encased in a protective plastic housing (keep in mind that all of this is located in the V with the starter......VERY close quarters!) After the starter is completely unbolted, and after the small starter wire is unplugged, it's still very difficult to get the starter to move enough to get inside the plastic housing to unbolt the starter power wire. However, that job is greatly helped by removing the 12mm ground wire that is bolted to the block just on the driver's side of the starter. By removing this bolt, it will allow you to pull the starter out enough that you can open the plastic housing and remove the power wire.......reassembly is the reverse........again, I found it to be easier (e.g., possible) to reinstall the driver's side 14mm starter bolt from below the truck. In addition to being easier for me from below, based on previous posts I was also concerned that trying to reinstall the bolt from the top (without a complete grip on the bolt head) might end up leaving the bolt loose.......no such issue with the extensions/u-joint configuration.

I probably should have waited to post this experience until I have completed the entire job, but I was SO happy to have finally gotten the old starter out/new starter in, I had to go ahead and post this (on the off chance that someone might be doing/about to do the same job)

Thanks again to all who have posted on this before. Hope the job is straight forward from here on out...........................

dnp

[rph1974]

Originally Posted by dnp

Thanks to all before me who have done and documented this job. Your experiences have been quite helpful to me on my LX470(although I'm not yet finished with the job, I'll report any further difficulties).......now, for those who have yet to do it: the intake removal is no big job; however, removal of the starter is a BEAR! As the previous posts have said, the starter is located in the "V" of the V8. What I DIDN'T understand is that the starter mounting bolts are on the outside (transmission side) of the block! There are 3 mounting bolts (2 14mm bolts and 1 12mm bolt) The passenger side 14mm bolt is not really that hard to get, nor is the 12mm bolt in the middle, but I had one *^&%^& of a time getting to the driver's side 14mm bolt! As a matter of fact, I simply could not get to it from the engine bay. I tried every position, reach, etc., and I couldn't get a socket on it. The only way I could get to it was from below.

First, I removed the tray from underneath the truck. Then, reaching between the exhaust and transmission on the driver's side, I was able to feel around and locate the offending bolt. I tried several extension/socket combinations, but I ran into almost the same problem I was having up top. I then made a trip to the local Harbor Freight store to pick up as many inexpensive extensions, extensions with wobble ends, and u-joint couplings that I thought I could possibly need.........in the end, what worked for me was a combination of extensions making up about 4 feet in length, with the business end being made up of a wobble-ended extension, a u-joint, and a shallow 14mm socket. I ran the extensions over the crossmember and threaded it up to the bolt. With a little working, I was able to get it totally over the bolt and remove it.

The other hard part about removing the starter is that the wiring harness that connects to the starter - among other things - is encased in a protective plastic housing (keep in mind that all of this is located in the V with the starter......VERY close quarters!) After the starter is completely unbolted, and after the small starter wire is unplugged, it's still very difficult to get the starter to move enough to get inside the plastic housing to unbolt the starter power wire. However, that job is greatly helped by removing the 12mm ground wire that is bolted to the block just on the driver's side of the starter. By removing this bolt, it will allow you to pull the starter out enough that you can open the plastic housing and remove the power wire.......reassembly is the reverse........again, I found it to be easier (e.g., possible) to reinstall the driver's side 14mm starter bolt from below the truck. In addition to being easier for me from below, based on previous posts I was also concerned that trying to reinstall the bolt from the top (without a complete grip on the bolt head) might end up leaving the bolt loose.......no such issue with the extensions/u-joint configuration.

I probably should have waited to post this experience until I have completed the entire job, but I was SO happy to have finally gotten the old starter out/new starter in, I had to go ahead and post this (on the off chance that someone might be doing/about to do the same job)

Thanks again to all who have posted on this before. Hope the job is straight forward from here on out...........................

dnp

It will be FAR easier to reinstall everything, than it was to take it all apart. Seems like we all agree that the driver's side starter bolt is a major PITA. I wish that I could be more specific here, but you can move that wiring harness that is in the way of that bolt. My buddy did that part, so I don't have an exact location, but he mentioned that the wiring harness had bolted to the transmission housing, and removal of it allowed us to move the wiring out of the way and gave us direct access to that damn bolt.

Hope the rest of the job goes smoothly from here!

[dnp]

Originally Posted by rph1974

It will be FAR easier to reinstall everything, than it was to take it all apart. Seems like we all agree that the driver's side starter bolt is a major PITA. I wish that I could be more specific here, but you can move that wiring harness that is in the way of that bolt. My buddy did that part, so I don't have an exact location, but he mentioned that the wiring harness had bolted to the transmission housing, and removal of it allowed us to move the wiring out of the way and gave us direct access to that damn bolt.

Hope the rest of the job goes smoothly from here!

rph1974,

I agree with you about moving the wiring harness; however, I couldn't even get to IT to move it out of the way! I'm sure I must have been missing a mounting bolt or something, but until I came up with the idea of the extensions, I thought I was going to have to have the truck towed to someone else........thank goodness that didn't happen!

In any event, you're right about the reassembly. Once the starter was reinstalled (it was as of my last post), the reinstallation of the intake, etc. was a piece of cake! NOTE: One thing I did on this job that I've not done before was to mark the removal of things. By this, I mean that, due to the number of plugs, hoses, etc. that have not been present on most of the other previous jobs like this I've done, I marked parts with tape. Every time I'd take something loose or remove a part, I marked the place of removal with a piece of blue painter's masking tape. This was done not to show me what went there - it was simply to remind me that something had not been reconnected or replaced in that spot....once all of the blue tape markers were gone, everything had been replaced......I did this just to make sure I didn't leave small items, like the rear ground wire, a vacuum hose, etc., disconnected..............worked great!

One final time: thanks to the great writeups here on jobs like this! While the job could have been done by figuring it out as I went along, having the opportunity to read about the disassembly/reassembly here before starting the job was a H-U-G-E time saver! (Not to mention that this forum identified what was wrong with my truck in the first place!)

dnp

[hank14]

Looks like the $300.00 labor plus parts (new starter) I paid was well worth it.

[dnp]

Originally Posted by hank14

Looks like the $300.00 labor plus parts (new starter) I paid was well worth it.

That was an E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T deal!!! Though I replaced the whole starter and installed new intake gaskets (both from CDan, of course), my parts bill alone was +/- $250

dnp

[fjinva]

I just finished this project in my garage with simple tools. Air ratchet provided no advantage on this one. It took me 4 hours total and I'm a 2.5 banana mechanic, ~average.

Of note:
I left the fuel regulator on the manifold and pulled the hose off the filter, like others did.

For the "tough" bolt on the starter, I used a deep 14mm socket that I placed on the bolt first. Then I added a 3 inch "wobble" extension with a universal joint adapter next to the wrench. I got this sucker off in about 2 minutes!! Thanks to the advice from the rest of you, and this socket set up! I also removed the 10mm bolt holding the wiring harness bracket on top of the bell housing. Made it much easier to get in there.

With the bolts removed and the ground wire unbolted, you can pull the starter out and rotate it to get to the little plastic "door" part of the yellow plastic cover. Last bolt is inside this.

I reused my gaskets and cleaned everything up while I was in there.

You do need to spend some time deep inside your engine bay, laying on some things and sitting on others, but this is a very straight forward exercise. Well worth the savings if you're inclined to that kind of thing.

[gopriest31]

Back inthe day when I was wrenchin for a living, we had one of these "over the fender" creepers- Its a rolling elevated platform that you climb up on and lay flat on your gut- Your arms are free to work dangling from the platform-

It would be awesome for this job- Wish I had access to one

Pricey bugger though- time to shop !
http://www.etoolcart.com/index.asp?P...OD&ProdID=1083

[hoser]

Here's a similiar product at Eastwood--cheaper but probably not as comfortable:

http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/p...&keyword=43335

[rule303]

Wow, a lot of work to replace starter contacts!

[ZJ2UZJ100]

Wish me luck. I have the parts and am going to take a stab at this after a trip to the dump.

I'm going to plan 4 hours. Maybe quicker depending on how long my son wants to hang around to hand me tools.

[ZJ2UZJ100]

Well, last weekend's attempt was a bust.

Lots of interruptions and after replacing the contacts, still got just the *Click-Hmmm* noise. I wish I had tested the reassembled starter before I put everything back together. I suspect both contacts were not seated in the same plane, and that the plunger would smack into only one contact, but not both. I believe that's what is keeping the motor from engaging the fly wheel and spinning.

Ordered another starter. Going to replace instead of repair, since it's such a pain to dissasemble. I blew the DIY payback.

A couple of tips for others trying this:

o completely remove the airbox so you can stand it its place in the engine bay. clip the tie-wrap that holds the MAF sensor wire routed against the box, so you can move it completely out of the way. The sheet metal under the air box is strong enough to stand on (I weigh 170lbs.)

o with the airbox & hoses out of the way, you can get your left foot down along side the passenger side of the block and stand on the right front upper control arm hinge. It's a beefy suspension component that gives you someplace to stand when you lift the throttle body. Just watch out for the coiled tubes.

o FYI, the FSM doesn't show disconnecting the TPS/ThrottleBody from the intake manifold. It just shows removal of throttle cable and wiring harness that goes to the TPS, and you can leave the whole throttle body bolted to the intake. Did I do that? No, I unbolted the TB from the manifold so there was less weight to lift. My helpers had all left to go to the pool!

o FSM says unbolt/unclip/unscrew the engine wiring harness all around the intake. You have to unplug all the injector wires anyway. You might as well also unscrew the two bolts that hold the harness (where shrouded in a black plastic protective case) at the back of the engine over the starter area. Getting the harness pushed a bit (an inch back there) out of the way is a good thing so you don't pinch anything when removing the intake manifold.

o There's a metal hot H2O bypass tube across the VBanks at the back of the engine that blocks your access to those darn starter bolts everybody has (with good reason) griped about. It combines coolant from each bank into a single hose that goes into the firewall. If you remove the 4 bolts (2 on each end) of the metal bypass pipe, you can swing it up out of the way. Leave it connected to the heater hose. Caution: cover the air intake holes at cylinders 7 and 8 before unbolting, so no coolant or dirt gets in them. A few ounces of coolant will dribble out and drain to the floor through holes under the starter motor. FSM recommends replacing the 2 gaskets for the bypass tube. Once I got this off, the driver's side starter motor bolt was easier to reach. Time saved on the bolts was probably worth $5 extra in gaskets.

o Have fun getting the starter bolts out.

o You don't have to totally disassemble the starter if you think it's just the contacts at fault. You can just unbolt (3x 12mm?) the trapezoid shaped door that covers the plunger/contacts end of the solenoid to get at the contacts. Clean it out when you are in there, but be carefull not to break any wires inside. If you want to overhaul the rest of the starter while you have it out (like I thought I would do), BEWARE the crappy soft screws that hold the covers on. I wasted an hour trying to get them out, stripping one of them and eventually resorting to a "Philips-to-Slotted" conversion, a al Dremmel tool. What a waste of time!

o After replacing the contacts, the FSM also shows a procedure of putting a wood block in the cavity and pressing down on the contacts with a drill press. No kidding! Nobody else mentioned this in their postings above, but maybe I was the only one to have a problem with not having the contacts seated in the same plane.

Now that I know what I'm doing, I expect I can get the swap done in 2 hours, withi help from somebody lifting the manifold out, and putting back in.

My wife would multiply that by 4 after last weekend's attempt!!!! ;-)

[spressomon]

Unfortunately it sounds like we all will have to deal with the starter issue around 90K? The 90K service just got bigger and more complex. But thank you for taking the time to write all the details up...it will save the rest of us lots of time and frustration I'm sure!

[ZJ2UZJ100]

Old (OE for 2000/03 UJZ100)
Red metallic sticker
"Toyota 28100-50070
228000-7393
12V (then some date code stamped)
Denso Japan"

New
Green metallic sticker
"Toyota 28100-50101
228000-8812
12V (d/c stamp)
Denso Japan"

Had a little bit extra plastic insulator behind/around the terminal posts, but otherwise same dimensions.


3 hours + break for lunch.

[tabraha]

BUMP..... to say thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. My operation went very smoothly thanks to the directions and pictures posted. Awesome job guys, and Woody that silver star is yet again a bargain compared to $300 in labor!