GQ 3L Petrol Starter

I have bitten the bullet and a mate who is a mobile auto 'leccy is coming around tomorrow. I don't normally allow anything but my hands into the guts of this car.

As has been suspected, these motors had 3 types of starter that were different enough to be a problem. The Hitachi that I have has a common fault that he was all too aware of. They typically only last about what mine has.

It is not going to be rebuilt but have the offending part replaced. He reckons it should be good for another 400k and I have had it a part a few times this week and the wear is still only minimal so I reckon he's right.

Only time will tell how things go.
I think the unit that is the same as the Commodore is of lesser quality and hence gets replaced sooner. The reason I think my units are hard (read impossible) to get, is that the engines probably die before the starter does. Thereby negating the need for Nissan to carry stocks and Repco for making copies. One can only wonder why Nissan had to have different bellhousings though as that is the limiting factor for my problem.

As this is a city car, she has had more than a few starts, and I use it to putter around the house a bit moving stuff and that also means many starts. My average journey would only be about 10k's at most now, so it doesn't take a genius to figure that the last 100,000 has been tough for the starter. It's a testament to Hitachi in my book.

As far as the engine needing an overhaul, it is only just broken in by my reckoning for a 3 litre Nissan (petrol anyway). I am going to keep looking for a buzz box though :)

Cheers Cam