The Ford Barn

tubman · 09-01-2021, 12:09 PM

Every once in a while, the starter on my '51 would hesitate a bit before it picked up and started the car. It happened once in about every 20 starts. This bothered me a bit, so I decided to solve the problem. Usually, I would have gone through the starter myself, but minor hand surgery has kinda limited me lately. I had seen several references to quality rebuilt starters from NAPA cheap, so I thought I'd take the easy way out this one time. I ordered a starter through NAPA Online and installed a new drive on it after I received it.

The first time I tried to start the car, it would barely turn over. I had had to start the car with the old starter to get it on the lift, so it had been working perfectly (with a fully charged Optima) just minutes before. We raised the car and checked the installation over and made sure it was grounded properly. The next attempt at starting the car, was the same; I did get it started but it barely turned over. Up again, and this time I put a 4 GA cable between the starter mounting bolt and a head bolt, but had the same labored turnover problem.

I had already disassembled the previous starter in preparation for a checkout, new brushes, and bushings, so I went through my stash and found one that had a "GOOD" tag on it. I installed that one and everything is fine again. Obviously, the unit from NAPA is defective.

One of the objectives I had was to reinforce my faith in NAPA as a consistent good source of parts, so this turned out to be doubly disappointing. Now I get to negotiate their Return Policy. I hope it works better than their starter.

09-01-2021, 12:09 PM	#1
tubman Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Minnesota, Florida Keys Posts: 10,319	Bad rebuilt starter from NAPA Every once in a while, the starter on my '51 would hesitate a bit before it picked up and started the car. It happened once in about every 20 starts. This bothered me a bit, so I decided to solve the problem. Usually, I would have gone through the starter myself, but minor hand surgery has kinda limited me lately. I had seen several references to quality rebuilt starters from NAPA cheap, so I thought I'd take the easy way out this one time. I ordered a starter through NAPA Online and installed a new drive on it after I received it. The first time I tried to start the car, it would barely turn over. I had had to start the car with the old starter to get it on the lift, so it had been working perfectly (with a fully charged Optima) just minutes before. We raised the car and checked the installation over and made sure it was grounded properly. The next attempt at starting the car, was the same; I did get it started but it barely turned over. Up again, and this time I put a 4 GA cable between the starter mounting bolt and a head bolt, but had the same labored turnover problem. I had already disassembled the previous starter in preparation for a checkout, new brushes, and bushings, so I went through my stash and found one that had a "GOOD" tag on it. I installed that one and everything is fine again. Obviously, the unit from NAPA is defective. One of the objectives I had was to reinforce my faith in NAPA as a consistent good source of parts, so this turned out to be doubly disappointing. Now I get to negotiate their Return Policy. I hope it works better than their starter.