Overhauled starter motor

One of my 150s has a 3.8 E-type engine, with triple HD8s, the conversion was done in the 70s.
The starter motor died in December.
Today I installed a replacement unit. It looked identical to my old one, but I now have a metallic, grinding, shearing (if that is the word) noise, so I turned off the engine.
What might be going on…?
Peder

Sounds like the starter has not fully disengaged after the engine starts. It would be worth checking that the gear on the replacement has the same number of teeth as the original.

Eric

Yes, (of course), but thanks anyway

Hello Peder,

for me it sounds more that the pinion gear got stuck after engaging and did not return the screw-way afterwards.

Same happened to me once assembling the starter using copper grease on the pinion. The grease was acting as a damper and dried up after some time (got hard). I had to remove the starter, cleaning that area and used only oil afterwards. It is working now for 6 years without any complaint.

Best regards

Thomas

Having the same issues. I have a 58 Xk150 with a 64 E-type 3.8 liter. The flywheel is 104 tooth E-type flywheel. Wondering if I need to replace the flywheel with the 132 tooth that was originally fitted to the 3.4 liter.

I would say so. The 132 tooth flywheel measures 13-5/16" diameter at the tips of the teeth. I don’t know if the 104 teeth are the same size; if they are, the 104 flywheel would be probably about 10-1/2" diameter.
You might post a question on the XK Engine and E-Type forums and see if anyone can measure a 104 tooth flywheel.
If that’s right, it’s a difference of 1.4" on radius, so I don’t see how it could work with the original bell housing. You must have a different bell housing.

As I understand it, to make it all work:

-if 3.4, use ALL 3.4 stuff
-if 3.8, use ALL 3.8 stuff
-if 4.2, use ALL 4.2 stuff.

I have a 3.8 with a 4.2 MOD gearbox on my ‘S’ I had to modify the bell housing by moving the starter outboard by approximately 3mm and bush the locating holes to suit (offset)
Luckily I was still toolmaking at the time :slight_smile:

Thanks for the info. Have this motor on a run stand trying to figure out why the starter is hanging up.

many a person converting gearboxes and motors has had this problem
one of the first problems is that there is a 10 and 11 tooth pinion on starter motors and some people don’t notice the difference.
If putting a later synchro gearbox on the back of XK motor best to use old 132 tooth flywheel original starter motor and to modify the face of bell housing to suit new gearbox by way of an machined alloy insert to secure front bearing this retains all original clutch system and most people aree none the wiser its been converted