Chinese Repair Parts

It arrived late today and I put it on after dinner. It works fine. At that price I was expecting a rebuilt starter. Dan

====================

A new brush set fixed my 91 Ranger's starter.

You might check the alternator brushes. There is a hole for a wire to restrain the brushes while you install the holder assembly.-jsw

I ordered a replacement alternator for the little JD 955 utility tractor that Mr Deere wanted nearly $300 for rebuilt. It was about $90 iirc; came w/ test strip and all. Worked out of the box but died inside a week.

They can build them in China for about what it costs to clean them for rebuilding in North America.

From

Nominal hourly salary in China - US$ 0.87 Nominal hourly salary in U.S. - US$10.13

That's no fun. Could you get your money back?

When the starter pinion on my 1980's Sears garden tractor stripped I unexpectedly found the replacement at the local hardware store.

-jsw

I might do some more looking just for grins. Looking at Autozone, they have replacement brushes for my truck ( a 94 4 cyl. ) for exactly the same price ( $37.99 including shipping ) as I paid for the whole starter.

In about 93 Ford changed to a permanent magnet starter with built in gear reduction. Suppose to have a bunch of advantages. The ( pmgr ) starter will replace the 91 starter ( at least for the 2.3 engine. )

Dan

I have the 2.3l. The original starter draws around 150A when the engine is warm, according to Autozone's portable clamp-on tester. The carefully maintained Interstate battery installed in 2002 has dropped to about 200A, not much of a margin. Can you easily determine the draw of the PM one?

I'm not too cheap to replace the battery, I'm testing ways to follow the battery makers' maintenance recommendations. So far monthly top-up charging and occasional equalizing from my solar panels has worked well. The battery seems to be in better condition now than a few years ago when I started checking it and found two weak cells.

It looks like the trickle charger for old batteries should have adjustable voltage output and voltage and current meters. An LM317 or LM350 and this meter is enough:

I haven't found much need for a current limit since the current automatically decreases as the battery voltage rises, unless it's badly sulfated.

-jsw

The ford PM starter I have on the CorvAir engine draws no more than 75 amps cranking 2.7 liters .

Yep, the chinks will do anything for our hard currency and their quality is just fine. Part of the reason I retired.