Bill from B&C called me Friday to try and help me with my starter problem -- this was before I had had a chance to call them to inform them of the problem. When you post something on the List, it really gets around. Anyway, he was very nice, thought it might be some corrosion on the solenoid plunger and/or barrel on the starter assembly, similar to the problems described in the posts by Clark and Ken in the past few days. He offered to send me some special grease also -- it went out on Friday.

I disassembled the solenoid on the starter this weekend to see if I could see any corrosion. There was none. I did, however, find a small ridge or burr at the bottom of the plunger that was left when it was manufactured. I also found a little scoring inside the barrel. When the assembly is hot, the tolerances are much tighter, and the plunger was hanging up because of the burr. I filed off the burr and rounded the bottom edge of the plunger before putting it back together.

Yesterday, I tried 2 hot starts in 90 degree temperatures. In both cases, the starter worked fine. Problem fixed.

(Ken, if you still have your B&C starter, examine the plunger and see if you don't see a small ridge at the bottom. I'll bet if you put a small radius on this edge, the starter will work fine.)

Mike Reinath
360 std. build MKII
N3602M