10/12/06
Changing a Starter on a 250GTE

We were having trouble with a starter motor installed in Scott Garvey’s 250GTE, so François had me swap out the starter for a newly rebuilt one. Removing a starter from a 250GTE is pretty involved, so I never had a chance to take pictures, but if you ever have to do this yourself, the steps involved are pretty self explanatory. I originally didn’t want to write a post because I didn’t have pictures, but writing down these steps will help me remember how to do it in the future!

1. Remove Battery.
2. Remove right side exhaust shield.
3. unbolt starter heat shield.
4. unbolt spark plug tube and lay spark plug wires and tube to the side while still connected to the distributor.
5. for early 250 engines where the oil filler comes out the side if the oil pan, the tube, and the cap have to be removed.
6. remove the exhaust header. If you have split header, you can get away with removing only the rear manifold.
7. loosen knock off on right front wheel
8. Jack up car, and place on jack stands
9. remove wheel
10. unbolt header from exhaust and remove header along with starter heat shield
11. disconnect electrical connections to starter
12. Remove two bolts that hold starter and remove the starter.

The whole job took me almost four hours! Taking everything apart was not the problem, but there was a fitment issue with the starter where we had to file off material from the cast aluminum starter housing so it could fit to this GTE. We found the starter fit fine on another 250 engine we had on an engine stand, but there was interference with this GTE’s engine block. Comparing the old and the new starter, we could see there was a slightly larger flange on the new starter that needed to be filed off so it would fit in the engine. I guess even the engine parts are hand fitted in these cars!

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