Larry B. Says: I try to start my truck and it just goes “Click” “Click” Then starts.

Larry has a 2003 Toyota pickup that he has owned since new. He loves the truck and it has never let him down until recently . He says that he went to start it up one morning and all he heard was a loud “Click” Click” “Click”. He was told that his battery was probably weak, so he decided that he would just go ahead and replace it without having it tested.It had been 6 years since he replaced the battery and it was due for one anyway. After he replaced the battery the “click” “click” noise was still there intermittently. It seemed to be happening with more frequency and he decided to have me take a look at it. The starter in his truck had worn starter contacts in the solenoid assembly causing the symptoms described to me. I informed him that he could approach this one or two ways. The first solution and the more expensive approach would be to replace the whole starter assembly.The second approach would be to remove the starter disassemble the starter solenoid and replace the worn contacts. He decided to replace the worn contacts for a little more labor,opposed to replacing the whole starter,for a lot more money. Now keep this in mind that Larry got lucky here because not all starters out there have replaceable contacts. His truck has a Nippon Denso starter note the shape of the housing with the red star on it pictured above. The housing kind of resembles a dog house shape at the top. If you do not have this style of starter you will likely have to just replace the starter entirely as an assembly. Note the starter below with the housing removed ,the red arrows indicate the worn contacts.

Red arrows point to worn starter contacts.

Red arrows point to worn starter contacts.

Note the the picture on the bottom with the green arrows pointed to the newly installed starter contacts. Big difference or what! So I got Larry back on the road and his truck was back to being “Ole reliable” as it once was, and I saved him a couple hundred bucks to boot!

Note green arrows indicate new starter contacts.

Note green arrows indicate new starter contacts.

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