Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
So this is how a starter motor works
Uh, it is kinda taken apart...
But um.. THIS right here
is the starter solenoid.. It's kind of beat up.
All a solenoid is, is just a coil of wire.
But if you run a current, an electrical current through
the coil of wire, it creates a magnetic field in the middle of the coil
and the direction of that field is... uh dependent on which way the current is flowing
so.. uh.. If you run a current through this, it creates a magnetic field this way, or that
way.
Now if you put something inside of here, a metal, magnetic core, like a piece of iron
or steel.
What will happen is when you energize this, it will create the magnetic field, and that
magnetic field will move what is ever in the middle here.
And that is all this part it, it is just a solenoid.
So this, this part, connects onto the top of the starter.
Now you can see there is a big spring here, and I will explain that in a second.
But what will happen is, this little plunger thing is what is inside that solenoid or coil
of wire.
So when it energizes, it will pull it back, and uh, when you turn the key and start the
car, it energizes the solenoid which pulls this back
and I will explain what that does in a second. But, when you let go of the key, this spring
is what pushes this back.
So this gets pushed back and compresses the spring, and then you let go of the key and
this pushes it back.
Now.
When this gets pulled back..
I am going to show you what happens when it gets pulled back.
See that?
That is the gears, you see how it spins a little bit too? That is so it can engage the
flywheel.
These teeth right here engage the flywheel.
Now this whole thing.. this whole bottom part is grounded to the battery so
uh.. and then you have the positive cable that supplied power to this.
So what happens is.. when you... when this... Let's do this in slow motion.
So it pulls it.. the gear engages. Now when it touches the chasis... Right there, it will
ground itself.
And now all of a sudden, the motor, the starter motor has power.
So it doesn't actually.. it doesn't start the starter until these teeth are engaged
and it grounds.
So... When that happens, it engages the motor in here. You can see, if I take off the back..
There are these brushes, they call them brushes right here that are on springs.
And these are always pushed against the armature. The armature is the thing that spins in the
middle.
So, many times when you have starter failure, all you need to do is open it up and replace
these brushes, which are very cheap, you know a couple of bucks, and that's it your starter
works.
So.. Let's open this even further..
You can see this... This little arm here.. See how it goes forward?
That engages to this.. and..
There yah go, it goes in here.
Um.. And then, you can take this out of the housing. This is the armature..
You can see these brushes are on springs, to keep electrical contact with the armature.
And this armature is what does all the... recieves all the big current and turns the
engine.
Now this is just an electrical motor... It uhh.. kind of
goes past the scope of this video to explain how an electrical motor works.
But uhh..
All it is is a motor, but it is just really big and draws a lot of current.
And that's pretty much how a starter works in a nut shell.
And you can see that around the outside it has coils of wire.
And that is just like an electric motor.
Maybe I will put a link on how an electric motor works because that is all this is.
That's pretty much it! You can see it's not that bad.
And like I said a lot of the times these brushes are what go. And all you need to do is open
it up and replace these brushes.
There is a little teeny nut right there to replace the brush.
So either the brushes go or the solenoid goes, both can be repaired.
And that's pretty much it! Thanks for watching!