So you’re saying starter motors don’t like being underwater?

[Mighty Buffalo]

A couple months ago I crossed the Mojave River which we estimate was about 3ft deep. Got a little water in the cab, but everything worked fine. Fast forward to Monday, and went to start up and I could hear the solenoid click, but no crank. I pulled the starter and took it to auto zone for testing, and they reproduced the problem. The solenoid engages the plunger, but no crank. I opened it up, found heavy corrosion on the battery side contact. I replaced the contacts and plunger, plugged it all back in, and everything is back to normal.

 

[pluton]

Much of soil in that area is considered to be heavily alkaline...Soda Lake for example. Maybe the water in the river crossing was a little more corrosive than is common elsewhere.

 

[dogtail]

A couple months ago I crossed the Mojave River which we estimate was about 3ft deep. Got a little water in the cab, but everything worked fine. Fast forward to Monday, and went to start up and I could hear the solenoid click, but no crank. I pulled the starter and took it to auto zone for testing, and they reproduced the problem. The solenoid engages the plunger, but no crank. I opened it up, found heavy corrosion on the battery side contact. I replaced the contacts and plunger, plugged it all back in, and everything is back to normal.

If you got yours at Autozone, their starters (Duracrap) are garbage. I'm on a lifetime warranty with them so I can keep swapping them out, I have a 5spd so they are quick to swap. This Summer I hit a deep puddle at high speed, it killed my few month old Autozone starter, just click, click. Had to pop start. I let it dry for a few days too. Cable contacts were all good with conductive grease. So water got inside starter and killed it, it should have held up to a puddle.

 

[Mighty Buffalo]

If you got yours at Autozone, their starters (Duracrap) are garbage. I'm on a lifetime warranty with them so I can keep swapping them out, I have a 5spd so they are quick to swap. This Summer I hit a deep puddle at high speed, it killed my few month old Autozone starter, just click, click. Had to pop start. I let it dry for a few days too. Cable contacts were all good with conductive grease. So water got inside starter and killed it, it should have held up to a puddle.

I just had them test it to confirm, and bought some electrical contact cleaner. I bought a new contact kit off Amazon and just swapped that. In truth, I probably could have cleaned the old contacts and been back in service, but I already had it apart.