xjarhead1999

sorry for the long post. nothing works as easy as its supposed to for me.

ok so here i am working on day 2 of my 45 minute job. i fished and fished and fished some more and the old starter would not come out from in between the long tube header and engine. gotta take into consideration that my exhaust is welded from front to back. whoever doen it didnt use the flanges or whatever they are called. i unbolted both headers, pushed them down as far as i could and nothing. tried prying the one header over and still not enough room. so last night i gave up, borrowed a sawz-all and decided to wait until today.

so i go out this morning with sawzall in hand and cut the h-pipe about 3 inches from the end of the header. figured that would give me enough room to get the header out or at least moved around enough to get the starter out. well it took me a little over an hour but i finally managed to squeeze it out of the maze. noticed it was a little smaller than the one i got at the parts store. no biggie though i thought, ive had that happen before on items. so i spend about an hour trying to fish the new starter in. well i got it in the general area but my headers just wouldnt work with me. i tried for awhile and finally threw in the towel and cut the headers in half. there was nothing i could really do. so i come inside and order a new hpipe and shorty headers(both mac) and cool off a bit before i install the starter. no need to be in a hurry since i cant go anywhere anyway.

here i am laying under the car, still ticked about the headers, but relieved because i can finally bolt on the starter. grab the new starter and put er up to the hole and grab a bolt. well it didnt fit right, wouldnt go all the way like its supposed to. i tried a few things like turning it a little, looking and it just wont go. so i crawl out from under the car and grab my old starter. guess what, its a different starter. well the new starter went flying into the feild beside me and several profane words start coming out of my mouth. how or why i didnt notice that before i crawled under my car, i dont know. it should have been obvious. the solenoid is on one of the starters and not the other, the part that hits the flywheel is off center on one of them. but anyway, back to the parts store i go..

so im at o'reilys with the new starter and old one. they kinda look at me funny when i say ignore the grass imbedded in the new one. told the guy that its the wrong one. so he looks it back up on the computer and its the right one. but its not like the one i took off. he asked if im sure its a 302 in the car. now i dont know alot about fords, but i know its a 302. although i was starting to wonder if mabey it wasnt. but what else could it be? a 351? doubt it. one guy there shopping said it looked like a chevy starter, i definatly knew it wasnt a chevy engine in there. the clerk looks around for a few things and just couldnt help me out. i think we looked for every 302 made around that year. gave me my money back even with the new one being all scuffed up, dirty, with grass stuck in it. so here i am with a starter that doesnt go to a mustang, but yet it came out mine. oh and for some reason it passed their testing machine. now i checked everything i could before i got into this mess so i knew it had to be starter.

ok so i leave with the old starter and im no better off than i was beforehand. then i remember that there used to be this girl that worked at autozone that knows more about cars than anyone else i know so i go there. she doesnt work there anymore, but i found someone that said he would help me and if it was possible i would leave with a new starter. i guess he pulled up 10 - 15 different starters and none of them matched up. there also happened to be a guy that likes mustangs there. he overheard us say mustang and just wanted to say nice car. guess he figures all mustangs are nice cars. anyway i asked him where this starter came from. he said that come from a 94 or around that year. so the guy pulls up a starter for a 93 and guess what, its a dead on match. go figure a 93 or 94 5.0 engine is in my 89 gt. well the price for that one is almost double the price for the one like i bought before. i remembered that it passed the test at o'reilys and asked him if he could test it. well it passed there also. so now i was confused, but then the guy noticed that one of the screws on the solenoid of my starter was a little loose. when he played with it the starter would fail. luckily you can buy just that solenoid and take the old one off the starter.

so the tally on my starter going out should have been 45 minutes and a $44 solenoid.

but it really has been
hours of work: 2 days
headers: $159.50
h-pipe: $138.99
solenoid: $44
trips to parts store: 5
number of times blood shed: 8
exhaust: $300(unsure about this, havent ordered it yet)
number of cuss words: unknown
number of beers: 18 and counting

knowing that someone is laughing right now because i know i look like an idiot: priceless


ive been owned by a damn starter.[:@]

Pure5.0

Confused here. So your saying that a 93 5.0 is more like a 94 engine than a 89 engine?

sastangman

i have a 95' starter in my 90'

roundman

Damn jarhead, if if won't for bad luck, you'd have no damn luck at all!!!
Funny story you told there, been there, done that too but not on a Stang! Was my kid brother's Geo Metro with over 280,000 miles on it. I won't bore everyone with all the gory details, suffice it to say once I got the starter out and sent him off for a new one, he came back with the old one saying they tested it and it was OK. Put the damn thing back in, tightened all the wires and put back in all the stuff I had to remove to get access to it, and voila, damn thing starts right up! And it's been starting right up every since! Go figure!
PS: on a 4 cylinder front wheel drive Geo Metro, both starter bolts DO NOT, repeat DO NOT come out from the same side!!! The bolt under the starter comes out toward the starter but the f**king top bolt comes out from the opposite direction and is damn well hidden too![:@]

xjarhead1999

i believe so. i know he pulled 93 up on the computer and im pretty sure it said 93-95. i know the one on 89 was called for on cars from 82-92.
it could just be the starter and flywheel thats from the newer vehicles that is on mine. all the other things seem to be in the same location as other late 80s cars.

yep thats the way my life has allways been. but i try to look at it as nothing worth having is easy or free!

now how about an update on my starter.

got the new solenoid on the starter hooked up and bolted back onto the car. i cant really start the car up, i mean my plugs are out and one of my headers is cut in half and laying in my driveway, but i needed to test if it would try to crank. so i pulled my coil wire and hooked up the battery. checked to make sure nothing was in the way of the fan or anything else that would move a little. also double checked to make sure everything hooked up properly. with the way my week has been i wanted to make sure i wouldnt mess anything up. anywho, i jump in the front seat, halfway depressed, halfway excited, and turn the key over just to hit the crank. well guess what i hear? one click and not from the starter. its from the OTHER starter solenoid beside the battery. i get out to see if i forgot a wire or something during hook-up. everything is where its supposed to be both on the solenoid and the battery. so i pull out my trusty ole solenoid tester(you know, a screwdriver) and touch the ends needed and guess what, a single click every time. you know what that means? that solenoid is bad. of course the funny thing is that wendsday when i checked it, it was fine, the starter was what wasnt working. somehow in the middle of all of this second solenoid decided that it wanted changed also.

but on a good note, i was finally able to figure out how to get the tps voltage set right. its at .98 and when i open throttle all the way it goes to a little below 4. it was something like 3.94 or something close. if i remember right its supposed to go over 4 at WOT, but i think i know why mine isnt. the screw at the bottom is holding the throttle open a little bit. i bet if i set it where its supposed to be then it should go over 4.

i figure since i cant go anywhere anyway for about a week, ill clean out the tb and iac and anything else that happens to need cleaning. i picked up a new cheap cai so that i can use the part that goes from the maf to the fenderwell. the one i have now just has the filter attached to maf. also going to install my msd if i can figure out where to mount it. i dont think it will fit under the cai, and i AM NOT moving my battery to the trunk again. it seemed like the distance caused some issues. im thinking about mounting it on the inside passenger side. i dont mean the floorboard, ill move it up to where its about aligned with the bottom of dash. that way it shouldnt get kicked, not that many people ride with me, but is still fairly accesible since i allready know something will go wrong(because of my luck) and ill need to get to it.

silver91gt

I put my msd inside the car where my passenger rear seat would be.