soooooooooo i have an issue.
Starter went bad last week, didn't have time until tonight to change it out. I crawled up under the car and started removing the old starter. As I did so, I noticed the short mounting tab was actually broken off of the starter, and the bolt was still in the engine block, so the starter was not connected on that side. On the other side, I started to remove the long bolt, and much to my dismay, the screw mount on the engine block for the far side fell down with the starter.. screw mounting point broken.
This is fairly common on these ls1 motors. Its because the starter torques the little tab too hard and over time it breaks the starter, the other mounting point then takes all the torque until it snaps the starter OUT of the engine block, as it breaks along the thin threaded tab.
The fix for this, is BEFORE it happens, to install the 'truck starter' which has a different mounting point on the small bolt/tab side, where you use a long bolt on that side coupled with a stronger starter design. I already had the truck starter to put in it when I found out i had a broken block mounting point.
There are TWO fixes for this.
ONE, a single guy makes a bracket, that you bolt into the location, and it mounts with the trans housing bolts, and it creates a new, permanently fixed mounting point. $370 + shipping + install
TWO, have someone weld the cast aluminium block piece back on, and retap it. unknown price, but cheaper than 400 bucks, (im thinking 1-150 IF I can find someone to do it, and IF it holds. Depending on the quality of the wed, they can last forever, or 2 months, its a crap shoot.
The dilemma is the money. I cant really afford either, since I JUST got the car tuned, and JUST put brand new wheels and tires on it, to the tune of about a grand.
My question for CP is, what do ya'll think, and does anyone even fairly local to me know a welder that can do the job right, WHILE the engine is in the car. Or even better, can someone fabricate me a bracket for much cheaper that achieves the same thing?? SAUTO???