Maxima2000SE

Based on this website: http://www.motorvate.ca/mvp.php/516, do I have to take out all those parts to have good access to the starter. I don't really want to mess around with the battery. How easy is it to totally remove the airbox assembly and the oil vapor separator? I also planned on repacking it with mobil 1 synthetic grease that I found.

2KBluePearlMax

Hey I just did this to my starter because it was having problems. You don't really need to take out the battery. For me the battery wasn't in the way at all. It is pretty simple to remove the airbox, it is basically a few bolts and some minor fidgeting with where the intake is connected to the actual box itself. I recommend taking off the negative terminal to your battery to be on the safe side. I think there was actually 3 bolts that holds the starter on. The directions that they give you on the link you gave are exactly what I did. Basically clean the **** out of it. Try it you'll like it!

tsk808

Maxima2000SE, please post details of how you went about doing this fix. I have a noise that sounds like a whine/buzz or a high-revving/spinning gear in the latter milliseconds of starting my car. It makes the RPM jump to little over 2K.

Is this the sound that made you decide to clean the starter? Oh, I have a 00 SE too. I believe the website you have there is for a 4th gen but still similar nonetheless.

Could you post what materials/products you used to clean it..why you chose those products...I appreciate the help!

ChromeSE5

iTrader: (3)

its pretty easy to remove the airbox but the hard part was removing some clips that held some wires together. I just cut through the clips and ziptied them later. Just have extensions and stuff.

Maxima2000SE

tsk808, i have not done this yet, but im planning on doing it next weekend, i was just wondering how hard it was to remove the things necessary to have good access. the guy's website said a lithium grease i think, and right now in my garage i saw some mobil 1 synthetic grease and just planned on using it. to anyone else, how hard is it to remove that silver boxy thing next to the starter, whatever that is? thanks in advance

max929

iTrader: (3)

for anyone who has done this, how long will greasing keep that nasty sound at bay????

Bensmax00

it only pays like .7 or .8 of an hour to replace the starter. I did my starter and it only took a half an hour to do the hole job. but thats because I work at the dealer

tsk808

I would appreciate a follow up! I'm getting more and more fed up with the loud grinding/buzz sound I'm having. How long did it take you, parts you used, etc. Thanks again.

Army of Maxima

iTrader: (1)

This writeup is a little much. I just did the VIAS fix and while I had the airbox and intake removed, I could clearly see the starter sitting there. Easier than it sounds... just know what you are doing and you'll be fine.

Greasing should keep the noise down for a while, but depends on conditions (i.e. heat/cold, humidity, etc).

hope this helps

Love_00_Max

There is a sticky on how-to in the forum.

Pl. note it is not as easy to regrease the starter as detailed by some in this thread. It is time consuming and one needs a ton of patience and right set of tools, there are some nuts and bolts that are real hard to access locations.

Anyway, the motorvate writeup is incomplete -- what is shown in the URL is not the motor (that needs regreasing) but the starter. The motor is right behind the starter.

tsk808

At schucks I mentioned re-greasing a starter motor and he said that he never heard of such thing. Instead, the sound I described has to do with the bendix device that :
The starter has a bendix built into it, in plain English it's the part that shoves the gear out of the starter housing to engage the flywheel and turn the engine over.

....seems like mine is not lubricated enough to disengage quickly...

The bendix kit is less than $30. I don't know why no one uses this term here. Perhaps this could help others to troubleshoot their problems better with mechanics. In the How To sticky from motorvate, it's not mentioned at all, making people think that you're re-greasing the starter motor. Any comments?

P. Samson

The Bendix drive/overrunning clutch can get gummed up and stick/hangup after a lot of years on the car. DO NOT remove the starter without (IGN. OFF) disconnecting the battery first. (unless you want to become an arc welder!) Once the starter is off, the pinion gear and shaft can be cleaned and relubed. (Better and easier if the solenoid is removed and keep the cleaning fluid away from the motor). I am against using grease on the Bendix as the grease attracts contaminates and it gets gummed up again. I use a spray dry film lube such as MolyKote (a couple of coats) and then a shot of silicone spray. While the starter is off it is worthwhile to remove the motor end cover and check/regrease the bushing. Accessing the motor bushing/bearing at the other end is usually more tricky and in my opinion not usually necessary.

Love_00_Max

Well, the schucks representative is perfectly right -- the starter doesn't need greasing but the motor behind it!!. There is a motor out there with moving parts that needs regreasing -- when I regreased my motor, the grease was all in small round black pallets and burnt out. I used Mobil1 syn grease and I haven't had cold start sreeching since then!!!


OK. This bendix kit (actually it is not a kit is any form or fashion), it is a platic component with a semi-cir curve on one side and a hook on the other. The hooked side fits into a hole in the starter and the curved side sits on a grove that is on the motor gear. Now due to electomagentic induction (Farday's Law that I learnt in engg), when you turn the ignition, the starter pulls the back and forth this plastic component, which inturn rapidly moves the gear within the magentic field (note the gears are in the middle of a bunch of magets). The magentic field gives the initial momemtum to move the shafts for where they pick up momentum on their own, synchronous machines.

There is no need to apply grease over any part of the bendix kit. Actually greasing the kit may be determental too... the speed in which the starter moves the kit may force the curved side to slip off the grove on the gears, just regrease the motor which is the source of the problem.

The entire job took me 3 hrs, not tough, just time consuming (my back was real sore after that)!!!!

sbrett

I just replaced my starter and as mentoned above the hardest part is removing unrelated wiring budle located right above the bolt on the lower right. The bolts are real tight so make sure you have a breaker bar because my 3/4 in. drive didnt cut it. Re-lubing the starter is a good option but I went ahead replaced it with a remanufactured one from Napa. The prices for these things were all over the board. I think Nissan wants something like $260 and I found a few others in that range. Napa's was $117 with the core return and has a three year warranty. Also, I have had good luck with Napa electronic parts. To me it is worth the $117 to not have to tear it apart over and over again to lube it.

tsk808

Thanks for all the replies. One part of this process that was kind of ignored was an assessment of the difficulty in taking out:

1. air filter
2. mass air flow sensor
3. oil / oil vapor separator (the black box between the MAF and the throttle body)
4. black plastic intake ducting

I'm not sure if these 4th gen parts exist on the 5th gen as well, but they do sound hard to take off. I especially am worried about the MAF, since they seem to be sensitive on our cars. I hate to risk it being finnicky and breaking just because I took it out to replace the starter...

Thanks for your input and thoughts.