Today I let my friend (responsible guy, not an idiot) borrow my truck to go move a mattress. So he drives from Terre Haute to Indianapolis, and 2 miles from home he heard a loud "pop" and smelled oil, so he decided to stop. Good move! My roommate and I went to fetch him. We assumed something oil related had blown up. Initial search didn't find anything leaking and the thing was reading like it really hadn't lost any oil. So upon trying to start the starter whirred and clunked like the bendix engaged, but engine wasn't cranking. Turned out that the starter exploded, housing is gone and everything. He claimed it all happened suddenly.

So, my question is have any of you seen this happen before and was there some stupid thing that caused it to engage? I don't want to put the thing back together and then have it happen again. I replaced this starter about a month ago (rebuilt by a reputable company that my shop always uses). Tomorrow morning I'm going to take out the starter, clean up the whole area and see if there're any signs of anything unusual going on there, just wanted to see if any of you have had something similar happen before.

This, of course, comes just after a bunch of other necessary expenses when I was hoping that the truck wouldn't blow up on me. Oh well, such is life.

Never seen one explode. If you have a lifetime warranty on the rebuild, I would take it in for an exchange. A month isn't long enough!


I wonder If your friend had to engage it while the engine was running or something?

i have seen (mind you this was on a piece of heavy machinery, not a truck) the bendix engaged and stuck engaged...... 2 hours into the day the starter gernaded itself.... blew it clean off the motor... tore a few teeth off the flywheel but it still worked with a new starter.

On a related note, met a guy who couldn't get his starter to engage the flywheel teeth on his 6.5 HD. It turned out to be the flywheel. He had a new flywheel put on because the old statrer ate the teeth and the mechanic mistakenly put a 454 flywheel on and it was close but ulgy when you turned the key.

Problem with this starter is that it's got a warranty, but back in New York where the shop is (I'm currently in Indiana). It looks like an AutoZone lifetime warranty starter will be going in today. I'll probably have to eat the core charge, at least for the time being. Might be able to mail the old one back to the guys at Jamco and get my money back, but somehow I doubt it.

I do seem to have a history of getting bad electrical components put in on the first try. When my alternator went bad back in April or May (this was after I had a battery go kaput on me, making it look like it was an alternator... ended up replacing both batteries with nice Interstate MegaTron 800 cca), I replaced it, only to have the replacement unit blow up on me 150 miles later in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma on a Sunday evening. By some sort of miracle I found the one shop that happened to be open on a Sunday evening, and they had the right replacement alternator in stock.

Then the starter went kaput on me right as I was going to be towing my friend's racecar to the track last month. At least this time the starter lasted me more than 150 miles! http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Big Smile.gif

We'll see what happens. After I eat breakfast I'm going to go put in a new starter, and Monday we'll find out if the shop that built my old one will give me any sort of money back. Maybe then I can get around to some of the fun mods! Thanks for your help, guys!