Thread: Starter and Alternator Life

I'm getting ready to have the firewall blanket done on my 2005 CTSW. Since the engine has about 700 hours, I'm wondering if it
would be wise to have the starter and alternator rebuilt while the engine is off the plane. I would hate to need to pull the engine
again to get at one of these for repairs. Has anyone had starter or generator problems on their Rotax engines ? I know that
a great deal depends on how they are treated, especially the starter, but I'm wondering what kind of life you all are getting from
your starters and alternators.
Mabey removing them is not as big a deal as I think. Thanks for any help.

WB

Hi WB,

I would think you should be fine on both. So long as you have had more or less normal quick starts and haven't just sat and cranked on the starter if the engine didn't start. I haven't had to replace any of the newer starters yet. What I mean by newer is several years ago Rotax came out with a better higher torque starter. You have that. The old starters were black and the newer ones are a gold color. I have a firewall blanket to install this Sunday. You should replace the rubber engine isolators though if you are going to pull the engine. They are about $180 and there are 16 of them. Don't panic the $180 is for all of them. They are double stacked that's why you only see a few of them on your engine mount. You can't see the ones underneath.

I have never seen one of the HD starters go out, but thats not to say it cant happen. A new starter is $333 , but you can purchase a brush set for much less. I would just assume the starter is fine but checking brush length is a good idea. The generator system has no moving parts other then the fly wheel so theres very little maintenance you can perform. I agree with Roger, anytime you pull the engine replace the rubber mounts. It takes a fare amount of time to pull the engine off and put back on so you might as well change them as long as you have the engine off.