G'Day Fella's,
For some time now, I have been having problem starting my 1990 vintage L/Cruiser.
This only happened very occasionally but usually when you least wanted it to happen.
I spoke to a bloke I know at The Battery Factory, here in Canberra, and he suggested that it may be the starter motor contacts.
Rob also said that these contacts get eroded away from arcing, during the starting operation, and eventually need replacing.
So a few weeks back, I got to it and pulled the starter motor out,
Rob also suggested that it is a fairly straight forward job to replace them, and told me where to get some replacement Contacts and Plunger from.
This was not quite as straight forward as that, as nobody had the exact replacement parts, not even Toyota.
The original contacts are made from 2.95mm thick Copper.
So I managed to get some similar shaped Contacts (but only 2.45mm thick), from an Auto Electrician and a new Plunger from another supplier.
I then went about machining away the stepped part of the smaller contact, leaving only 0.5mm remaining, on that area that makes contact.
I then hack sawed off the contact section of the replacement 2.45mm thick contact I had, and Tig welded it to the original and machined down contact.
After this was all completed, I soaked the repaired contact in Copper Bore solvent ("Patch Out" brand), which cleaned it up.
I then rinsed this solvent off and reassembled the starter motor, and bolted it back in.
It works as good as it did, when the "Battle Cruiser" was new.
Hope that helps
Merry Christmas
Homer