pugwash
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2010
- Messages
- 484
- Country Flag
After buggering my starter motor (right royally), I've spent some time looking for starter motors. Toyota wanted a faintly comedic £680 for a new one.
Spent quite some time looking for a new supplier.
Milners wanted £170+£8 delivey +VAT- £213, which isn't a bad price, but they couldn't tell me if that was brand new, OEM, remanufactured or anything similar - all they could tell me was that they had one on the shelf and that they came from a UK supplier.
The cheapest supplier i found who looked vaguely reputable (and seemed to know what they were talking about) were these guys http://www.startermotor-alternator-stor ... 2327-p.asp
they wanted £165 delivered, which is cheap. When i phoned them they certainly knew their onion but agreed that the picture on the website was the actual unit. This is fine, but the unit is clearly NOT oem, with no drainage/expansion holes and a different design of body. If i wasn't using the vehicle hard for offroading and overlanding this would be the unit i'd go for, but when you need to rely on something then you ahve to have confidence.
Eventually i remember a remanufacturing company called Wood Auto Supplies- a good quality independant recommended to me by a friend in the car trade- they started out in automotive rotating remanufacturing!
A quick search on the DENSO part gave this: http://www.woodauto.com/Unit.aspx?Man=D ... 1280008620
which is clearnly an OEM spec 24v starter for a cruiser- exactly the same body, same motor, same screw and bolt arrangement. Looks remanufactured to me! Price is about the same as Milners (and maybe what milners supply), but knowing what you are getting is key, and with next day delivery, i'll be ordering one of these shortly. This really does look very good value for money- will have to see if it performs as well as it looks.
- it also lists equivalent part numbers. Most interestingly it also shows parts numbers for the sub assembly of the starter- including the pinion/sub assemble for £50- this is the part which is £200 from Toyota and you need a press to remove- basically its the bendix drive that shoves the starter gear onto the ring gear. Very hard to find in my search so far- they also supply the intermediate gear, and the armature (bascically the drive motor).
If you want more parts, you can buy a solenoid including housing from here:
http://rfrance.com/catalog.php?category=STARTER SOLENOID&brand=DENSO&key=16 -part number ss50-100
They also do a variety of other bits and bobs.
Oddly the only bit i couldnt' find from these places were the contacts and plunger, but you can buy these from Yota for not too much money.
With all the above parts, you can replace any bit of a starter motor that isn't working- which is what i'll probably do for my old starter- strip it doen completely, replace the bushes and the starter gear, and then either keep it as a spare or put it up for sale!
Hope this helps other people- will update when i've had the new starter from Wood Automotive (and probably found out that my ring gear is buggered!)
Oddly Wood auto also do new and reconditioned alternators, but they don't seem to be as good value- however the website is so large that i have maybe missed something!
Spent quite some time looking for a new supplier.
Milners wanted £170+£8 delivey +VAT- £213, which isn't a bad price, but they couldn't tell me if that was brand new, OEM, remanufactured or anything similar - all they could tell me was that they had one on the shelf and that they came from a UK supplier.
The cheapest supplier i found who looked vaguely reputable (and seemed to know what they were talking about) were these guys http://www.startermotor-alternator-stor ... 2327-p.asp
they wanted £165 delivered, which is cheap. When i phoned them they certainly knew their onion but agreed that the picture on the website was the actual unit. This is fine, but the unit is clearly NOT oem, with no drainage/expansion holes and a different design of body. If i wasn't using the vehicle hard for offroading and overlanding this would be the unit i'd go for, but when you need to rely on something then you ahve to have confidence.
Eventually i remember a remanufacturing company called Wood Auto Supplies- a good quality independant recommended to me by a friend in the car trade- they started out in automotive rotating remanufacturing!
A quick search on the DENSO part gave this: http://www.woodauto.com/Unit.aspx?Man=D ... 1280008620
which is clearnly an OEM spec 24v starter for a cruiser- exactly the same body, same motor, same screw and bolt arrangement. Looks remanufactured to me! Price is about the same as Milners (and maybe what milners supply), but knowing what you are getting is key, and with next day delivery, i'll be ordering one of these shortly. This really does look very good value for money- will have to see if it performs as well as it looks.
- it also lists equivalent part numbers. Most interestingly it also shows parts numbers for the sub assembly of the starter- including the pinion/sub assemble for £50- this is the part which is £200 from Toyota and you need a press to remove- basically its the bendix drive that shoves the starter gear onto the ring gear. Very hard to find in my search so far- they also supply the intermediate gear, and the armature (bascically the drive motor).
If you want more parts, you can buy a solenoid including housing from here:
http://rfrance.com/catalog.php?category=STARTER SOLENOID&brand=DENSO&key=16 -part number ss50-100
They also do a variety of other bits and bobs.
Oddly the only bit i couldnt' find from these places were the contacts and plunger, but you can buy these from Yota for not too much money.
With all the above parts, you can replace any bit of a starter motor that isn't working- which is what i'll probably do for my old starter- strip it doen completely, replace the bushes and the starter gear, and then either keep it as a spare or put it up for sale!
Hope this helps other people- will update when i've had the new starter from Wood Automotive (and probably found out that my ring gear is buggered!)
Oddly Wood auto also do new and reconditioned alternators, but they don't seem to be as good value- however the website is so large that i have maybe missed something!
I too have starter problems at the moment (Milner) luckily I have a spare OEM one in the garage, the one that was taken off previously when I thought I had starter probs before and bought the Milner one, after cleaning the contacts the OEM turned out to be OK, so ended up as the spare but I will want to get another now as a spare. 
this must be the 4/5th one of theirs I have had fail 
but they may agree to replace but not refund 
) and it started with less than a quarter of a turn like it used to. very good. 
As an asides Frank how did you get on with your 12 volt starter conversion? 
