First of all, Hi, my name is Andrew and I live in Concord, CA and i'm in a little bit of a fix....

The starter motor in my 1988 Mazda 929 has been finicky the last few days, it left me stranded at home twice and once a couple miles away, had to get towed home. I had enough and am driving the family minivan around while the Mazda sits up on ramps in my driveway. The car is probably not worth fixing, but its my only option right now (and it has a FULL tank of gas, cant let that go to waste ^_^). I've priced a new motor, $130. (ouch) As far as the old one, here is my problem:

I have disconnected the wires and taken out the bolts, so now its just a loose unit bouncing around under the engine, but I cannot get the damn thing out of there! The engine bay is so cramped and the starter motor is in a small little "compartment" above the steering rack, right below an engine mount, in front of the bell housing, etc. The space where the thing supposedly can be drawn out through does not seem to be big enough, I can get it out half way but the magnetic switch (or whatever the hell its called) gets caught. Its completely disconnected and loose I just cant draw the actual unit out. The shop manual gives no details other than "Draw it out through the underside of the vehicle".

Has anybody ever replaced this part in this car, and if so how did you do it? I know this is a long shot, but I dont really have much choice [:@] I need to car the get to school and work.


And while im at it, how do I replace the radio on the thing? I tore the whole dash apart one time to no avail. Do I have to bite the bullet and cut some metal?

 

Pull the power steering pump loose to get the starter out. You don't need to take the fluid lines off, just pull loose from engine and move away from engine as much as possible and it will come out the hole provided by the extra space where the pump was. You may need to move the metal trans cooler lines around a little bit too but just be careful not to kink them.

 

I got it out, and now the weirdest thing has happened.

The new starter works great, it cranks strong, but now the engine BARELY STARTS! I cannot believe it, the car has not had ANY ignition problems its entire life, even when the bad starter motor did crank, it started the the engine on the first try. Now with the new starter motor, I have to tap start quite a few times to get the engine to fire up. If I crank continiously it will NOT start, I have to tap it the key to start 4 or 5 times.

Replaced Battery, Rotor, and cap. Still same problem. I pulled the new starter out to make sure I did not damage any wires or anything when I put it in, and I didnt. At least I can drive it now, I just have no clue why its having trouble starting after I installed the new motor, two systems that really operate completely independant of each other.

I had somebody test the spark with a scredriver while I cranked, and it seemed really weak and intermittent. However it runs beatifully once it starts. Why would the spark be bad while cranking, but good once the engine is running under its own power?