Starter motor problems

Just one of those days, Charmaine had gone to work and I was packing up the coach to move to a new house sit in Laidley Heights. While going down the road driving, I decided ro stop on the side of the road to check everything was ok inside and out. After checking things I jumped back into the driver’s seat turned the key and nothing happened apart from some clicking. So there I was on the side of the road…. the only good thing was I parked under a nice big tree, so I had some shade.

I gave Charmaine a call and when she had finished work she came back so at least I could jump-start the coach. That didn’t work either and we were going to have to spend some money and get some help. A $110 and a 1hr later help arrived, we hooked up two 12v batteries to make 24v and even that didn’t work until he put power straight to the starter motor bypassing the solenoid the Detroit started like nothing happened.

That was not the only problem

So back on the road again, I had tested the engine brakes on the flat but now it was down the Toowoomba range to give them the real test. Charmaine went on ahead down the range in front of me, as I put it in second gear and switch on the engine breaks and down the hill I went no problem. Finally something worked right, I made it down the range in one pice.

The next thing to go wrong was the inline diesel filter under the bus started to block about 10 klms from a our next house sit, so I had to pull over, stop to clean the inline filter and the main filters too. On the side of the road for the second time in one day with no way to start the coach by myself, so another call to Charmaine to come to the rescue again. This time Charmaine was inside the coach to turn the key while I did the 24v power bypass to the starter motor and back on the road again.

Now to fix the starter motor

It turns out the contacts in the solenoid is stuffed, so another thing to fix. Good thing about big motors there’s lots of room around them to work.

Just have to remove the end plate to the solenoid.

All fixed just forgot to take pic of it apart. oops…

Just the wires to go and it will be as good as new.

I forgot to take photo’s again, I just had to clean up the contacts for the 24v solenoid till I can find some new one. This job was a lot easer than working on a car. Well the starter motor doing it’s thing again and turning over the Detroit 6V92TA, got to love that sound.