Starter

When we moved houses ~20 years ago, the starter decided that the brushes were too worn to start the car that morning.  We ended pushing the car the four blocks to the new house.  Of course, there was a slight rise that turned into Mt. Rainier when pushing the 330.

After a while, I pulled the starter and put in new brushes.  After I got the car back on the road about 10 years ago, the starter solenoid became flaky.  I took the starter out again and took it to an auto electric place.  They replaced the solenoid with a Bosch unit that they adapted to fit.

Over the years, that solenoid is getting flaky too.  Sometimes it takes 30 or 40 turns of the key before the starter turns over.  The good thing is that now there is a company (Ferrari Starters) that makes modern gear reduction starters that are exact replacements.  The advantages of this starter are weight (9 lbs. vs. 22), size and speed of operation along with drawing less power.  The two disadvantages are the looks and the sound.

   

I'm a purist at heart, but I've been through too many starter problems to keep fixing the Magnetti-Marelli one.  I'll put it on the shelf, so if some future owner wants to go back to the original, they will have that option.

In order to remove the starter, several other items need to come off first.

1. Remove the right front wheel.
2. Remove the battery to provide access to the header studs.
3. Remove the right side header heat shield.  There are just three bolts that hold it on.
4. Remove the starter head shield from under the rear header.  If your car does not have this heat shield, I strongly advise making one.  The header can't be pulled out with the shield attached.
5. Remove the right side collector (exhaust between the headers and front muffler).  This is a real pain as the bolts holding it to the headers are in horrible locations and are usually rusted on.  I had replaced all of mine with stainless steel ones on the last go around.  However, stainless steel had the property of galling, so I had to cut off two of the six.
6. Remove the rear header.
7. Remove the wires from the starter.  Note the removal of the battery.  These wires come directly from the battery so would be hot.
8. Remove the two nuts holding the starter to the bell housing.  These two nuts are 16mm which is a very unusual metric size.  The location is very tight, which is probably why these are not the standard 17mm nuts that are normally used on 12mm studs.
9. Now with a crane, remove the starter.  Just kidding on the crane, but it is quite heavy, so turn it over to get a good grip on it by the solenoid.

Since things are apart, there are two other projects I'll do at the same time.  A while ago, I noticed that there are heat shields over the engine mounts shown in the parts book.  I don't have these on my car, nor do I see any screw holes like there ever were.  But I think that they are a good idea, particularly after inspecting the rubber in the engine mounts.  So I'm going to make a pair and install them.  The other project is to replace the collectors.  The last item is to drop the LH exhaust and wrinkle paint the rusty sections.

Of course, it is the details that take a lot of time.  The Bosch solenoid on the old starter had a ring connector for the starter lead.  This one has a spade connector.  But Ferrari used #12 wire and I didn't have any large wire spade connectors.  So I had to take apart a smaller connector and solder it on.  At the same time, the plastic tubing around the wire was stiff and cracked, so I replaced it.  Then I used some heat shrink tubing to cover the connector back to the tubing. 

       

Here is what it looks like installed.  One nice thing, the nuts are now much more accessible due to the smaller size of the starter.  As you can see, the starter can barely be seen under its heat shield and that is before the header heat shield is re-installed.

   

I did test the starter before starting the re-assembly. Completely different sound.  I hadn't put the header back on when the car started.  Boy is the V12 loud without an exhaust on one side.  Click on the old and new starter pictures for difference in the sounds.