Quote:
Originally Posted by DannL
The starter wouldn't start when it was in the car. Took it out and fired up on the ground and it works fine. Dismantled the contact and this is what I got. A lot of missing copper.
PS. Then it died again. No workee.
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I guess I am missing something but I fail to see how a burned contact would cause an engine to shut-off after driving 500 feet.
The burned contacts could be from several things. It can be from a driver who did/does not depress the start fully causing the contacts to arc. It could be from poor connections that allowed the bus bar to get extremely hot. It could also be from incorrect cable size and/or excessive crank times that caused excessive heat to be generated. And/or, it could be from a faulty starter that is drawing excess current. Generally speaking, once arcing has occurred where the copper contacts have burned, the contact connection continually gets worse with each subsequent start until you reach this condition like in the pictures. In other words, this just didn't happen, as it has been continually gotten worse.
One other thing that I am curious about since the starter failed. A stock Model-A has a provision for starting crank to be inserted at the front of the engine through a hole in the radiator shell. Is there a reason why you did not use that, -or maybe just push start the engine by rolling the vehicle and 'popping' the clutch? While the tow truck driver would not have received money to fix his transmission, you likely could have saved $300 though.