Hey, y'all –- can anyone recommend a good replacement starter? I've gone through two in the last five years and now I had the latest crap out on me in a little over a year.

I mean, they're not the most expensive things in the world and it wouldn't be such a pain-in-the-*** under normal situations, but I'm running a set of long-tube Hooker headers and the passenger side one makes it EXTREMELY difficult to change out.

Any suggestions? Anyone else running through starters on their 460?

Forgot to add: I'm cooking the ground cable while trying to get this thing to turn over. It'll either click alot in the solenoid or it'll try to slowly turn over with no luck. Thanks guys...

Might be that header thats frying the starter

aint no might be... it is... how long have you had those headers on there? did the first "new" starter go out right after you put the headers on?

A heat shield or blanket may help out...

I agree that heat shield and heat wrap should be a step taken regardless, but from what I read, people are having alot of success with the Mean Green starter line. I usually have really good luck opting for the more expensive motorcraft reman'd starters over the cheap house brand starters too.

Install a heat shield

Get yourself a NEW starter or have a auto-electric place build/rebuild you one for the 460.

Run the Battery ground cable right down to a starter bolt.

^^^Dennis...IIRC 351M/400 and 460 starters are interchangeable, correct? Are the 460 internals any stronger/better? Or are they the same PN?????

Welp, after a long day yesterday, turns out it wasn't the starter. But for starters, I bought the truck with a set of Hooker long-tube headers on it and I think the starter was always suffering from some heat soak. I had put a blanket on it, but that didn't really do much.

But, on to the real problem: turns out, there was water in all the cylinders! So, it was a much bigger problem and I still can't figure out how it happened. I wasn't losing an inordinate amount of coolant in the rad, I never noticed any steam coming out the exhaust, basically didn't notice anything wrong till it just got really hard to start over the last few days. And then, it just wouldn't start at all yesterday morning.

Bad news: can't keep the truck. Good news: I found another one (a Super Camper), so I'm gonna part this one out. I'll post the parts in the correct bucket, but I wanted to let y'all know...

Get your next one from Auto Zone they are lifetime warrenty. No ? asked and you don't need to keep the reciept. They have it in their computer.

sometimes they tend to loose info in their computer if the worker is not competent... has happened to several members on here...

money_pit said:

Get your next one from Auto Zone they are lifetime warrenty. No ? asked and you don't need to keep the reciept. They have it in their computer.

Click to expand...

Well, yes and no... As mentioned, a incompetent operator can make it to where the file cannot be found. They could mis-key the number, your name, a lot of different things can possibly go wrong to where your file can't be found, plus that is trusting electronics to work right forever. My wife recently learned (again) to not totally trust electronics to everything... hard drive crash. I still recommend keeping receipts, even though typically it is not an issue.

Other point, the no questions asked, if you are regularly returning a starter, it will eventually become a problem. Sure, normally it isn't an issue, but start bringing them back monthly, it will be. Every few years, no issue.

I'm thinking the next time mine goes bad I might try one of the later model gear reduction 460 starters. I have outboard headers so heat and fitment won't be a problem. Has anyone tried one ? If so how do you like it ?