How to Replace Direct Drive Starter 1982-91 GMC Jimmy Full Size

Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com. Your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet.

Hi I am Mike Green. I am one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I am going to use my 20 plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this, to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly; that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video we are going to replace the starter on this 1986 GMC Jimmy; pretty much the same as any GM truck and car with a 305, 350 V8. Really the same procedure for any GM car with V8 or Inline 6 or whatever that's rear wheel drive or four wheel drive. On this truck it is pretty easy to get to everything. It's a good truck to shoot the video for, but if you are working on a car it may be a little more difficult to get to some of the places. Tools you will need are 8mm or a 5/16in socket and ratchet for disconnecting the battery and disconnecting the lead on the starter, a 16mm or 11/16in socket for disconnecting the battery wires, and then a 9/16in socket for the bolts for the starter. Also, you will need jack and jack stands probably to raise your vehicle and get underneath.

First thing is you want to do is disconnect your negative battery cable. Now underneath the car, we are looking right at the front of the starter here. You are going to have two sets of wires to unbolt; a 5/8in or 16mm nut and a 5/16in or 8mm nut. Once you have those two out, then there is two bolts, here and here. On this truck those bolts are 9/16in. I am going to cheat slightly by using an air ratchet.

While we are fast forwarding through this, on some vehicles you may have an additional bracket that holds the front of the starter, and obviously you need to remove that too.

After you pull this one out and loosen this one up, you may find that you have some spacers in there. You want to pull those out and keep those for when you install a new one. After I get that bolt out, starter comes right down. Here is the new starter from 1A Auto, here's our original starter. You will notice the size of the 1A Auto starter is smaller, but what counts is the mounting points are the same. Obviously all the points for the hooking up the wiring are the same. Our starters are gear reduction starters. They are wider and they are higher torque, and they can work in higher temperatures as well. They probably weigh about half as much as the original style starters.

Put it back in. I'm sure you will note I'm not putting the pretty new 1A starter in because this is just an example vehicle and this starter, there's nothing with. Put the starter back up in there and then you want to start this bolt that's closer to the engine first. Basically just kind of put it up in there and shake it around a little bit. Try and get it to line up with its hole and get it started a few turns. I am just going to use hand tools to put it back in. Got that one going pretty good and put your spacers up and in. They go in kind of pitched towards the front of the car. Put your other bolt up through, start it in. Just roughly tighten them up, and I kind of push on the starter up a little bit. Get that one snug but not tight yet; same with that one. Now you want to torque these to 50 ft-lbs each.

Once the starter is back up in there, you're going to get your big wires out of the way. This wire is a small purple wire. You want to put that on the post closest to the truck or to the engine. Then there is a small lock washer and then the nut. As you tighten this up, you want to make sure it is pointing straight up and down, it's not too close to the big post, and it's not too close to the engine. Now you put your battery cable on first, and then the harness wires, then a lock washer, and the nut. As you tighten these up, just makes sure they are not hitting against anything. They are kind of centered and kind of pointing off to the right. This is a truck so everything is easy to get to. If you have a car, a Monte Carlo, a Grand Prix, or whatever else, all this might not be quite as easy to get to.

Now we can let the car down and connect the battery and it's all set. We've got the battery connected and everything is good. If your starter were to not engage, you would want to check and make sure, you might want to put another shim in. If your starter engages but can skip or doesn't seem to engage correctly, then you might want to take a shim out. Generally if you just use the same shims when you take it out and put the same ones back in, you are going to be fine.

We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com- Your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Please feel free to call us toll free 888-844-3393. We're the company that is here for you on the internet and in person.