Starter brushes worn, flip em?

[Custom/Ten]

not a starter from one of our trucks but it is a newer gm, pretty much the same thing so why not ask herre. Anybody ever flipped some brushes before. There's more on the backside and the front is wearing into the wires. Thought maybe I heard somebody did this before.

[wbc409]

Just replace them.

[Custom/Ten]

Originally Posted by wbc409

Just replace them.

Aren't you clever, but that's not what I asked is it.

[wbc409]

I work on electric motors every day. Unless the brushes are unavailable my recommendation would be to replace them

[too much stuff]

Originally Posted by wbc409

Just replace them.

I agree^^

But to answer your question i have never heard of anybody wasting time doing that.

[Custom/Ten]

Originally Posted by wbc409

I work on electric motors every day. Unless the brushes are unavailable my recommendation would be to replace them

They are unavailable, I'm just gonna flip em and see what happens. Sry if I sound like a jerk but I was ticked off at your answer before you gave it. I new that's what someone would say. I don't wanna buy a starter for a car that's headed to the scrapyard soon.

Just forget this thread I'll soon know if it is ok or not, I'm just gonna do it.

[Custom/Ten]

2 hrs work an now I got this I guarantee the back side of that brush outlasts that car with 250000 miles. You call it a waste of time but since I just got outta buying a 100$ starter I call it 50 bucks an hour haha. Thanks for trying to help.

[truckster]

Sorry I didn't get to your post sooner. I've reversed the brushes and had starters last for years afterward. I also make sure I lube the nose bearing and the shaft.

[Custom/Ten]

Originally Posted by truckster

Sorry I didn't get to your post sooner. I've reversed the brushes and had starters last for years afterward. I also make sure I lube the nose bearing and the shaft.

Thanks man, lates better than never! I knew I wasent crazy lol!

[7tee]

Oh yes, I've done this before, at least until I got new ones...

[olebluegmc]

I know this may sound stupid, but I'm here to learn. What kind've symptoms are there when the brushes are bad vs. when you have to replace the whole starter ?

[Custom/Ten]

Originally Posted by olebluegmc

I know this may sound stupid, but I'm here to learn. What kind've symptoms are there when the brushes are bad vs. when you have to replace the whole starter ?

Nothing stupid about that question man. Really when the brushes are bad the armàture is usually pretty worn too as they rub up against each other. You can get the armature resurfaced at a machine shop if it's not to bad but that costs about the same as a new starter and brushes so it's pretty much pointless. The rest of the starter is prolly pretty worn out too at this point. The only reason I cleaned and flipped brushes in this starter is cause I just need a little more time out of this car. I'm gonna scrap it soon and didn't want to put 100 bucks into a starter.

Might be tmi here but since the wife's car had this bad starter I loaned her one of my trucks and I'm doing some repair/upgrades on my c-10 so we were down to 1 vehicle. I needed to get another car back on the road quick so I just flipped the brushes to get it running temporarily. What I'm saying is you really only wanna bother with just brushes when your in a pinch and need to get something on the road quick. That said I'm sure some people replace just brushes and still get a lot of life out of it, but in most cases IMO if your gonna pull it off why not just pop a new one on there so you know you've got all new stuff. Would be kind of a pain to do armature and brushes then pull it off agàin the next year cause the solenoid went out. Sorry for the novel man just trying to give you the full picture here.

Short answer, your starters not working right, so you pull it off and open it up. You look at your brushes and they look like the ones in the above picture. They should be more than twice as long as those if they were band new.That's how you know you have bad brushes.

[olebluegmc]

Sweet thanks for the in depth reply ! I'm just a weekend warrior mechanic so I have a lot to learn but I'm always trying to expand my knowledge. Never know when you run into a situation where you'll use something new you learned

[Custom/Ten]

Originally Posted by olebluegmc

Sweet thanks for the in depth reply ! I'm just a weekend warrior mechanic so I have a lot to learn but I'm always trying to expand my knowledge. Never know when you run into a situation where you'll use something new you learned

Np man, you'll like this site. There's all kinds of cool threads on here. Just about anything you could think of has already been asked and answered in some of the old threads.