Starter woes. Stumped

[Joe91M]

I use a mini high torque starter off an S10. Before you laugh, it's $120 at any parts store, usually in stock, and the one starter that I have had for 3 years, has been on 5 sbcs since I bought it. It's fairly well sealed and continues to amaze me as far as cranking over even when I don't have enough juice to get spark. Ask for a starter for a 95-99 s10 blazer with a 4.3.

 

[chulisohombre]

I appreciate the help. I will check the starter tomorrow. Anyway I drove his truck today and it never had a problem. One time after a 45 min drive, parking and the truck sitting for an hour it turned over a little slower than normal but still started fine. Another time I drove it for 10 mins and parked for 4 mins to run in a store and it cranked right back up. So maybe the new heat shield has made it good enough. I am going to drive it again tomorrow and see what happens. I talked to him tonight and apologized for buying him a cheap unit but told him that I have done everything I can to make it work optimally, he's all good with everything and knows that the next step is a 100 dollar starter, and if we have to go that route I will probably cover the 40 dollars that the duralast unit cost.

I tend to buy my electrical parts like starters and alternators from Napa. It's a little more money but I've always had better luck through them than auto zone or others.

 

[Joe91M]

I like Napa a lot, however I've been using the local oreilys since the napa in town got shut down. I did a little checking last night, and the S10 mini starter will happily crank over my stick 454. Just some food for thought.

 

[shady]

I haven't had any issue with orielly electronic parts. The AutoZone stuff I've had quite a bit of problems with... Don't know what the difference is...

 

[diesel4me]

Around here most of the parts stores all get their parts from the same warehouses...the boxes they come in may be "exclusive" to the particular brand the store carries,but the parts inside them often come from the same source..
Some stores even order parts from Rockauto and jack up the price double or triple,knowing some customers who are not "into computers" do not go looking online for cheaper prices..