Hi there

I am looking to get a new starter motor as I think mine is starting to fail. I am aware that I can get a 9 tooth or 10 tooth starter depending on the number of teeth on the ring gear.

1. This may be a stupid question, but is there an easy way to access and count the ring gear teeth? I don't have a hoist or a pit and getting under the car will be a PITA. It is also not clear to me exactly how to get access to the ring gear easily in order to count the teeth, even if I do get under the car.

2. Does anyone know what ring gear would typlically be on an Australian built 1967 VC Valiant automatic?

If there is no "typical", I suppose I could just take the 50:50 chance of buying the "right" starter, although I do not know if it will be obvious that it will not fit. If it will not fit, I could just return the "wrong" one and order the replacement with the "right" number of teeth. But I'd prefer not to fit the "wrong" one, if the wrong one will fit, and then damage the ring gear or starter by cranking it with the wrong number of teeth.

Any suggestions welcome.

Cheers
Mark

Maybe you could remove the starter that you have and count the teeth on the starter gear?
If it’s 9 or 10 you will know what to order.
If you prefer to count the teeth on the flywheel one way to do that is:
with the starter removed, mark a tooth with a white paint marker and count that as 1, then with a bolt in the front damper center and a wrench on the bolt turn the motor a bit, look into the starter housing bore and mark and count more teeth. Continue this until all the teeth are counted and marked. It would be a good idea to have a piece of scrap paper handy and write down the number of flywheel teeth counted and marked prior to each manual engine turn. Removing the sparkplugs will make manually turning the engine over easier.

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Thanks DadTruck

I understand that counting the teeth on the factory starter does not necessarily work when determining what the correct starter should be if a say, hi mini-starter or hi torque starter is used.

See https://www.hemiperformance.com.au/shop ... -gear.html

I think what you suggest is likely to be easier than trying to get under the car.

I'm still interested to know if anyone can say that e.g. 80% of the ring gear's used in Australia at that time were 148 teeth rather than 122 or 130 teeth, I could save myself the trouble and just take a bet on getting the right one.

Cheers

You've been misinformed. Counting the teeth on your existing starter is a reliable method of figuring out how many teeth your replacement starter needs. If your present starter has a 25mm, 9-tooth pinion, that's the kind you get on the replacement starter. If your present starter has a 33mm, 10-tooth pinion, that's the kind you get—no matter whether you get an original-type or mini starter.

If your VC has a Slant-6 engine, it almost certainly has a 9-tooth starter, originally a Bosch direct-drive item.

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Thanks Dan that is very helpful. Yes it is a 1967 VC with a Slant-6 auto and the starter is a Bosch starter. The engine casting no. is 330 4 29991, which makes me think that the slant is a later model slant than 1967, but you probably know the answer to that. The stamp behind no 1 looks like O 22 R 1980 E.

I think a hi-torque 2.5 HP mini-starter is overkill on my vehicle and the Aussie Speed dual Dutra Duals are made to fit around the bigger starter, but oddly full size "old style" starters seem to be quite a bit more expensive than mini-hi-torque ones here.

Everywhere I see these mini-starters for sale in this part of the world, the following or similar is stated: "Please note: It is important that you count the number of teeth on the flywheel, not the starter motor pinion. Please do this & confirm 148 tooth count on your flywheel before purchasing as there is also a 122/130 tooth starter motor available which we also stock." Or "Before purchasing. Don't count the teeth on the starter different brands and pitches on the gear can mesh with different amount of teeth required
**always count the ring gear **" - I wonder if that is just to cover off the sellers.

Mark

So yes, it is a nine tooth starter and I did count the ring gear at 148 teeth.

Only problem I have now is that when I cranked it (with no power to the high voltage coil connected to ensure the slant didn't fire), I must have melted the starter relay closed as the starter just kept cranking after I turned the key off until I quickly pulled the battery cable. The new starter now cranks as soon as I connect the battery terminals, no matter where the keys are.

Not sure what caused the ignition connection/relay to stay/weld closed. I had to join the original ignition feed and ground to a slighty thinner gauge copper wire as the terminal connections are a bit further away than on the original Bosch starter and I didn't have equal gauge wire to hand to makev the distance. Would a thinner gauge wire which, presumably is a bit higher resistance from the ignition to the starter and to the starter earth do this? If I fried the relay once, I don't want to do it twice, so will redo the joins.with thicker gauge before I try again. Also the relay is likely very old if not original.

Am I on the right track?

I could swap out the new and old starter again and see if the old one just keeps cranking as well to ensure it's not the new starter itself.