My car is an 84 Indy, manual tranny. A few months ago I was having some issues with the starter. So I replaced it with an OEM Delco starter. I've been fine ever since, no issues. Lately is has been extremely cold here, which obviously makes it harder for the starter to start the car. The car was fine until about a week ago. I go to start it and just get a click. So I go to look at the starter and notice that the plastic cap on the end of the solenoid is loose. I'm talking about the brown plastic cap at the end where all of the power terminals are located. It was loose, and the gasket was hanging down a bit. I've never even heard of this happening before, and doesn't make any sense to me as to why that would be loose. So I had someone hold the key while I messed around with the cap, trying to put it in place, and eventually I held it into place and the car started. Will I need to drop the starter to fix this? Should I return the whole starter, which is on warranty, or just try and screw the end cap back on? I'm not even sure how the cap is held onto the solenoid.

return it. I've never seen one of those endcaps come off, they are supposed to be bonded onto the metal..
you;re going to have to drop the starter anyway to wo anything with it, so you might as well put in a new one.

quote Originally posted by tjm4fun: return it. I've never seen one of those endcaps come off, they are supposed to be bonded onto the metal.. you;re going to have to drop the starter anyway to wo anything with it, so you might as well put in a new one.

Yeah, that's what I figured. It just really makes me mad because it's not going to be any warmer than 15 degrees here for the next few weeks, and I need this car to run. I remember it wasn't all that difficult to replace the starter, but still, I am going to have to take a break every 15 minutes just so that I don't get frost bite. What a pain. The reason I paid so much more for the delco starter is that I thought it would last longer and be higher quality than those cheap autozone starters. Guess I was wrong.

Your Delco starter probably came from Ti-won or Mexico. I would take it to a starter and altenater repair shop. They are always happy to see you and fix it right the first time. Your starter is still new and is probably like new inside. You just need a good solinoid put on it. its 50 outside and misting rain here. Good luck in the cold.
Joe Crawford
Texas

OK, Josef644; don't be telling everyone in the frozen north about Texas weather. They'll all want to move down here for the winter and the trafiic is already getting worse! Do you think they'll be rubbing it in when they have 70's in July and we are at 110?

Return that starter. Over the years we've installed many new and rebuilt starters that have worked intermittently. We've seen some remanufactured starters right out of the box that didn't work.

------------------
87GT 3.4 Turbo- 0-60 5.2 seconds -Best
Engine Controls, ECM goodies, Chip
re-programming & odd electronics stuff