well i finally had to do it. i have been having the slow hot start issue and as i promised i am posting how to double the life of your solenoid, but while i was in there is decided to pull the starter apart too.
but first, when you start having the slow start problem, your car that is, there are some things you need to take a look at first.
make sure the battery is fully charged and then have a load test done on it. advance or autozone does it for free. if you want to do a check your self, measure battery voltage while someone cranks the car. voltage should not drop below about 10v.
next make sure ALL of your major power connections are clean and tight. most people dont think about the grounds but they are just as important as the positives. check the battery to the body ground and the body to the tranny ground that is under the car.
verify you have a good 12v on the yellow wire to the starter.
now onto the rebuild.
some soldering skills and tools are required. you dont need a big soldering gun but a solder sucker is a real bonus.
i this first pic i have the starter mounted in my vise and you can see the connections that need to be de-soldered in the 8 oclock and 2 oclock position. BTW, i am doing this without removing the solenoid.
you can see that the 2 wires are covered in black paint. this has to be cleaned off. i used a wire brush and a pic to clean it.
this pic i tried to show you how it looks after it is clean.
here i have heated the solder and as you can see, i am not using a very big soldering iron. the trick here is to be patient and to add solder to the iron between the iron and the solder you are trying to heat up. the reason for this is the heat is transferred to the solenoid through the melted solder you have added. basically, better heat transfer through the liquid solder.
i would have shown the solder being sucked away but my third hand was busy.
here you can see that i have removed all the solder from one terminal. the wire may still be stuck to the side, so just tack you iron and put it on the wire and push it away from that side when it melts.
