How do you take out a starter in a 1995 Chevy S-10 2.2L 4 cylinder?

Answer 1

Jack the truck and place on supports and disconnect one of the batter cables so the power to the truck is dead. Begin by removing the transmission bell-housing support (there are two bolts and one nut. One bolt at the transmission and one bolt at the front of the engine and one nut back about 6 inches from the bolt) and remove the brace. Remove the driver side wheel. Push the rubber wheel well flap up into the engine compartment so that you can see into to engine compartment. You should see a heat shield that is in between the motor mount and the starter, remove it by taking the bolt out at the bottom of the shield on the frame (I believe its a 10 mm bolt). Pull out the heat shield by lifting it straight up and pulling towards you. From the front of the truck, you should be able to see the starter and see a nut that holds the starter to a bracket, remove this nut (8 mm nut). There is another one, but you won't be able to reach it at this time. Move back to the wheel well. You should see a bolt that holds the bracket on to the engine, remove this bolt (its either a 13 or 15 mm, I don't quite remember). You'll have to remove the battery cable from the solenoid, this can be done before or after the bracket bolt is removed, it doesn't really matter. Move to the transmission housing. Remove the inspection cover, there should be 2 bolts holding it on (10 mm bolts) and pull off the inspection cover. Now loosen the starter bolts, there are 2, one on each side of the starter (13 mm bolts). The one on the outside (driver side) may be slightly blocked by the exhaust pipe, but a wobble will work around it. (The Hayes manual tells you to remove the exhaust pipe, but I was able to do it without doing so, but you can if you have the ability, it will probably mean you can get the bracket off easier). With the bolts out of the starter (one is short, driver side, the other is long, passenger side) it should drop down and rest on the transmission bell housing, don't try to pull it out yet. Go to the front of the truck and see if you can remove the remaining bracket nut, hopefully you can see it now and remove it. The bracket should come off and remove it. Now go push the starter towards the front of the truck and pull down, it should come out. There is still one wire attached, so support it as you bring it down. The wire is attached to the solenoid by a 8 mm nut, remove it and take the starter out.

The new starter will have nuts for both the solenoid and bracket, remove them before re-installing. Re-installation is pretty much the reverse. Put the solenoid wire back on, push the starter up into the bell housing, push straight up then tilt to the front of the truck and rest in in the bell housing. Reach up and place front bracket on to the starter, I remember it was easiest from the front of the truck. Put both nuts on if you can that attaches the bracket to the starter, I ended up only putting the one on the top, the bottom was to difficult and not worth the trouble (this was the second starter I put on the truck, so it missing didn't cause any issues). Now go back and put the starter bolts back in and tighten. Move to the wheel well, re-attach the battery cable to the solenoid and re-attach the bracket to the engine with the bolt. Put the heat shield back on by pushing in and sliding down and re-installing the bolt. Replace the transmission inspection cover. Make sure to pull the rubber wheel well flap back and re-install the wheel. Put the engine/ transmission bell house support back in with the bolts and nut.

This is not an easy job, but can be done with minimal tools (a metric socket set and metric wrenches and several socket extensions (a wobble helps as well)) but is very frustrating. I've done it twice on this truck (truck has a total of 230K miles, the third starter was just installed due to solenoid failure, so it doesn't need to be done often). If you need more information, email me at svsund@AOL.com