Need help with starter woes

[ProjectLover]

Over the past year I've been having starter problems. It started with a rebuilt denso that lasted many years. Since then I've gone through about 4 rebuilt starters. On the 4th I ordered a rebuild kit which included copper contacts, gaskets, replacement terminal, and rebuilt the starter myself.

Yesterday I was on my 3rd stop around town. Upon restarting the car I heard a weird winding noise while reversing and didnt think much of it. After stopping somewhere else and trying to start again, the starter was only clicking.

I gave it some gentle taps and turned the key a few times and it fired up.

Am I just having bad starter luck or do I have a gremlin somewhere that's wearing out the starter? I typically start the car 3 times a day and it fires right up.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Rusty Marlin]

Any chance its the engine bay grounds being corroded? I went through a similar thing, but instead of changing the starter I thought it was my battery. Turned out it was a bad battery to chassis ground.
Have been testing the starters off the rig?

 

[Greg E23]

I had a terrible time a few years ago when I replaced my starter. Went through several Denso remans that I bought from Toyota that either didn't work out of the box or lasted a very short time. Ended up getting a rebuilt Denso from eBay that's worked flawlessly so far.

 

[alia176]

I'm suspecting the old wiring since you're going through so many starters. Please look for the click click click starter threads and see if your wires are dropping too much voltage to the solenoid. Quite a few of us are using a separate relay to feed the solenoid max amperage during starting. This is going around the factory starter circuit.

 

[ProjectLover]

Any chance its the engine bay grounds being corroded? I went through a similar thing, but instead of changing the starter I thought it was my battery. Turned out it was a bad battery to chassis ground.
Have been testing the starters off the rig?

Thanks for the reply, Rusty.
I do test them off the rig before I replace. They work as expected. You might be on to something with the ground. I'll have to check the engine grounds for crud and rust.

 

[Rusty Marlin]

Make sure you check the grounds with a multi meter looking at the ohms. My wires and connections looked clean, I'd have never found the problem w/o a multimeter.

 

[jonheld]

FWIW, I received 2 remanufactured starters from Toyota in red and white boxes that were faulty right out of the box.
Both had used and pitted solenoid plungers with improperly installed contacts and dirty solenoid bores.

I wound up rebuilding both using OEM parts. That was about 10 or 12 years ago. Both starters are still working fine in 2 different daily driven 80s.
There are many threads on this forum with step by step directions and OEM part numbers.
The FSM also has directions.