Anyway, the latest issue with the bloody thing involved the starter motor. About a month ago, the sodding transmission cooler lines ruptured AGAIN, leading me to abandon the cooler built into the radiator and to repurpose the redundant air conditioning condenser radiator as a trans cooler. This merely involved cutting off half the rusty trans cooler pipes and replacing them with some thick-walled rubber hose. Don't use thin-wall - I found this to my cost when it burst within five miles last time around.
The new cooler works a treat - in fact, it's probably over-spec by about 200% as the fluid never seems to get warm - but I'd noticed that the starter motor had been getting a bit lazy. Sometimes it wouldn't turn over at all, and, suspecting the solenoid, a common fault on Foxes, I'd bridged the main terminals and got it to start. Then, after a trip of about seven miles to the local bearings and fasteners factors, it wouldn't start. I tried bridging the solenoid but ... nothing. I tried clubbing the starter with a hammer, and still nothing. I could hear the solenoid clicking closed, and could hear the arm that throws the pinion on the starter, but it wasn't turning. You can't push-start a C3 auto so I had no choice but to call the AA and tell them the starter was fubar. So, after waiting just over an hour (there was a pub nearby that sold London Pride which, although it sounds like a gay festival is actually a decent pint. Well, this one was pretty mediocre, but anyway...) the AA patrolman turns up and tells me my starter motor is fubar. Thanks. Fair play to the guy, though, he jacked the car up and whipped off the starter, connected it to his jump-start pack and, sure enough, the pinion shot out but the motor didn't turn one jot.
So, two hours later, a recovery truck arrives to haul the car three miles to the workshop. I'd told patrol-dude I was happy for him to flat-tow me for three miles but he wouldn't - not only might it damage the auto box, there's no towing eye on the front of a Fox.
A desperate plea went out on Faecebook and, having confirmed that a Euro Pinto starter motor will NOT fit, found out that a V8 starter WILL.
The Pinto starter (on the right) uses a three-bolt fixing, while the V8 uses two, but apparently a V8 starter will go on. God bless Billy 'Four-Speed' Cattell, who not only had a spare starter but was also heading to the Hot Rod Drags, where I was going the following day.
As you can see, Billy's starter is clean and painted while mine is foul and filthy, and I think this tells you everything you need to know about Billy and I. You'll also notice that the V8 starter is quite a bit larger around the body than the Pinto one (yes, I know, I'm a fine one to talk) and when it came to mount it, guess what was in the way? Yes, the remains of the sodding transmission cooler steel pipes. Well, if I just bend them out of the way here a fraction, bend them a fraction towards the sump here, then just a tiny little bend heSNAP. Bloody hell's teeth, I thought, with another few quids-worth of ATF dribbling into the gravel, there must be thruppence-worth of shonky steel pipe here but they've already caused me at least a grand's-worth of pain in my fudgy bunghole and they're STILL AT IT! Another cut'n'shut with some rubber pipe and I'm considering buying shares in the company that makes Jubilee clips.
I also had to drill out the terminal end on the starter cable by a mil or two to go over the stud on the V8 starter, which means putting the terminal in the Workmate, the drill biting into the brass, pulling it free and coiling up the starter cable while you get whipped by the loose end. I don't understand why some people pay for this sort of treatment...
The silver lining is that the car now starts with a minimum of fuss, and I may one day get around to stripping down the Pinto starter and trying to find the cause of its demise. I believe that being soaked in hot trans fluid from busted cooler pipes not once, not twice but FOUR times may have something to do with it...
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