Classic British Starter on D1

[outono]

Question on the high performance Classic British Starter - it doesnt have a spade terminal like the OEM so what’s the proper way of hooking it up?

I created a small cable that connects the spade to the small ring terminal. I suppose that’ll do? Sorry, electronics are not my specialty….

 

[kris812]

Cut the wire and replace the connector with whatever size eyelet is needed would be best. However it's just the Trigger wire, so your adapter is fine!! But I would put some heat shrink on it in case you wade any water to avoid unknown and hard to find corrosion issues later.

 

[outono]

Perfect, that’s what’s I did and fired it right up. Easy to do and damn this new starter is great.

 

[terryjm1]

I’m pretty sure mine came with a round to spade terminal adapter. in case you are curious the British Starters are remanufactured Japanese vehicle starters. I cant recall his first name but they are made by a man named Gustafson with his main vendor being British Starters but there are several others selling them. I had a problem with getting British Starters to respond to my messages about getting a warranty replacement for my 300tdi. So, I contacted Gustafson directly. Without asking for proof of purchase he immediately shipped me another one which was an improved version. He said he had some problems with the first version he made for the diesel engines and switched to stronger type. I cant say enough good things about Gustafson. He also told me he buys the used starters in bulk, takes them apart, cleans them, replaces all the wear items, and somewhere in that process does the machine work to make them fit various models. Also, last I checked, British Starters is the only one of his vendors offering a lifetime warranty.

 

[4Runner]

I also have a British Starter. It came with the most detailed build sheet I’ve ever seen for an automotive electrical component. Customer service was awesome. Great company far as I can tell.

 

[outono]

I also have a British Starter. It came with the most detailed build sheet I’ve ever seen for an automotive electrical component. Customer service was awesome. Great company far as I can tell.

Does yours make a kinda grindy sound when you fire it up? Sounds sorta like starting the ignition again while the truck is already running. Its very brief and usually just before the motor starts.

 

[terryjm1]

The problem I had with the TDI starter is the drive gear was too tight against the flywheel ring gear and made it too slow to disengage which quickly led to the internal gears in the starter failing. The noise you describe is kind of like what mine was doing but much more than brief. I don’t believe yours is doing that but maybe it’s just a very brief delay in meshing / aligning with flywheel gear. I also have one on a TR8, which uses the same starter as the v8 Land Rover. It does not make that noise.

While this is a bit off topic, on the 300tdi, I tried a few different starters.The first was an uprated Bosch starter sold by a LR Defender enthusiast. . It didn’t last long as it appeared the updating was just a higher kw motor but the same spider gears as the lower kw version. One day went to start it and it just spun like the solenoid quit working. I pulled it and tried a new solenoid and it changed nothing. So,I took it apart to find only pieces of the spider gears. I won’t do that again.

Then I tried the aforementioned British Starters first version.

After 2 failed starters from different sources I began to think something wasn’t right with the flywheel/ring gear. It was a rebuilt engine i purchased so I had no prior experience with it. So, I did some research and found Valeo was an OE supplier of higher kw starters to Land Rover in some of the 300tdi models and European diesel Ford Rangers which surprisingly used the same starter. I found a new one on eBay UK. It has worked flawlessly for years. The seller on eBay UK was offering them surprisingly cheap so I ordered another one to keep on the shelf. I now have a British Starters unit and the Valeo on the shelf. I have a 200TDI project (Santana) waiting for one of them. If I knew then what I know now I would go with the Valeo from the start. The only problem with them is they are hard to find. I don’t know if new ones can still be found but there was a place in the UK that offered them remanufactured.