Not knowing the full story here, nor wanting to burst any satisfaction bubbles BUT why did you have to pay postage ( i know its taken me three pages of post to ask what was mentioned in your first post )
Another curved ball - I found my 1979 2 litre type 4 was coupled with a older pre 1975 3 rib bell housing. So initially I ordered the ‘wrong starter’. I suppose it was my fault hence I paid the post In the words of Mick ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’. - maybe he used to own Nellie?
There is always a magic spanner you need - I had to cut up and re-weld my favourite 13mm combination spanner to make a cranked ring spanner for quick access to one of the nuts on the progressive carburettor. But at least then I went out and bought a better 13mm spanner as a replacement. And the thing with that high torque geared starter is that it did not start its life as a VW starter, so the 3D layout is not ideal.
Reindexing would mean that the face plate would need to be re drilled very close to the existing holes - I’d suggest this would be a right botch. So would have to be a new face plate entirely and that means back to Powerlite. So a bit of a mess on and I’m not guaranteed it’s gonna work then either. I’ll try the simple spanner solutions first
Are you sure you’ve got an RAC525? Mine bolted on without any issues. Cables reached too. The profile of yours looks quite different to mine: This is a 17mm wide nut with plenty of clearance: I got mine about 18 months ago. Colours are different from yours too, so perhaps they changed the design. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
They've just milled off a bit of the flange. Opportunity to get another tool and Dremel some clearance
Certainly looks that way. Not done much better than a DIY job either. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If you have to drill holes that are too close to the slots to get it to fit, consider what happens if you either extend the slots, or rotate the starter body 10 degrees further than the minimum and then drill the holes. A reconditioned starter would have been a lot less effort.. (There are two screws under silicone on the back of the stock solenoid - unscrew these, desolder the two wires soldered through the cap with a very big soldering iron, I carefully used a small pencil style blow torch and a 50 watt soldering iron together - and then clean up the copper contactor plate and contacts, then try it again .. )
Remember in the game of consequences, that sometimes there is a chain that starts with a single decision, and which causes ever increasing problems. The "sunk cost" problem comes in here - "its cost me a lot so I have try to use it" . Remember the original problem. Go back to the actual problem you are really trying to solve (slow cranking) and maybe re-consider the solutions based on your knowledge which you now have .
Mm, was a pretty logical path: changed earth strap, fitted hot start relay, checked battery cranking bolts, changed bell housing bush. Then I changed the expensive item the starter and it solved the problem. only problem is access around a bolt. I’ll sort that, just trying to find a cheap way rather than send it back for re machining. No regrets so far, but I think Powerlite have cocked up with the indexing with the starter flange
But you did make the starter more expensive by deciding you needed more torque with a geared starter, rather than just first trying a reconditioned starter which has exactly the torque required to spin the engine at 300rpm ..... From where you are it definitely looks like the simplest way to continue is to re-drill the fixing holes in the starter fixing flange to re-index it, as that will get the clearance without grinding off lots of metal.
Seem to be quite a few stud extractors out there. Anyone done this on the bell housing stud with tool recommended? So this would be replace with m10 Allen headed bolt. Sounds like a good plan. Slight worry if I cock up the extraction could be nasty… Believe it or not I don’t think I’ve cocked anything up yet. Although you may beg to differ
