Re: starter motors

["Dennis Hawkins" <n4mwd@amsat.org>]

On 31 May 2001, at 10:39, David Roden (Akron OH USA) wrote:


> Starters are not designed for efficiency or long life.  Their total
> use in the lifetime of a car might be a few hours at most, so they use
> the cheapest design.  In particular their bearings are of marginal
> quality.

Actually, some starters are better than others.  On the bearing 
issue, all of the starter motors I have disassembled have had no real 
bearings at all - just brass sleeves.  On a chevy starter I just 
rebuilt, it had a brass sleeve in the rear and no sleeve at all in 
the front.  Just a hole drilled in the aluminum and packed with 
grease.  Without a big ICE to slow it down, the starter motor would 
quickly throw the grease and then self destruct.  

To use such a motor, the first thing you would have to do would be to 
install real bearings.  That is no small task, but it can be done.

If all you want it for is to power a bicycle, I suggest that you 
check out a few of these links:

http://www.peltzer.net/ebike/ebike2.htm

http://www.electric-bikes.com/others-b.htm

http://www.electricbikessys.com/motor.htm

They may give you some ideas.

Dennis.




Dennis Hawkins (n4mwd@amsat.org)