The Family Tractor

[Vass 1007]

Dug into the starter extraction first thing Saturday morning. Quite an easy job all in all, with no messy fuel lines to disconnect the intake manifold came off in around half an hour giving decent enough access to the starter/bell housing bolts from up top. Still quite a tight squeeze but not as hard up against the firewall/transmission tunnel than you'd have on an E46 and such. Cracked the bolts loose using a swivel head ratchet and then used a 10mm ratchet spanner to back them out the rest of the way. The intake itself was still nice and clean, just slightly oily, which was good to see.

Took the starter to my mate who split it open and to discover brushes that were very much perished, leaving behind an impressive pile of carbon. From what he saw he reckoned it should be back in business with a good clean, regrease and new brushes. That would be a relief as new ones of these chunky starters are $500+.

Left it with him to sort out during the week and scooted back home. Still had plenty of daylight left so tinkered on fixing an annoyance I had with the car ever since purchasing it - when pressing the button to fold in the side mirrors, they would fold in and go straight back out again, refusing to remain tucked in. Did a bit of digging and landed on this video which looked worth a shot. Popped off the mirror covers to inspect - the passenger side was fine but sure enough, on the driver's side the little metal lever had fallen off the sensor mechanism and was just sitting there. Gave the area a good clean, bent the tabs in slightly, reseated the lever and fixed she was.

Also noticed the power steering reservoir had gotten wet again. I gave the area a good clean when doing the first batch of work on the engine so this was fairly new. The O-ring in the cap didn't look too bad but I managed to find a slightly chunkier one in my stash and threw that on. Hopefully that was the culprit of the leak all along.