How do you replace the starter on a 2000 ford explorer?

Answer 1

Well, I've found the answer to this question elsewhere on the net and you probably have too.

This is a very simple repair that is rendered near-impossible by the physical access a mortal human has to the starter work area.

Here are the highlights of other stuff I've seen on the repair, plus my two cents:

1. Make sure you remove and secure the negative battery terminal connection before you start. As tight a squeeze as this repair is, you have zero chance of snaking a socket over one of the solenoid wire connections without bumping one of the other connections and shorting a circuit... right through your heart. As Chico Marx said, "That's-a no good."

ONCE YOU DISCONNECT that battery, you're going to lose all your stored computer error codes. So, if you need to check those, check them before you start the repair.

2. IF YOUR CAR IS STILL RUNNING (and heck, why would it be if you need to change the starter???) you want to get your Explorer up on ramps. If the Explorer is dead, you aren't going to be able push that behemoth up ramps, so Plan B is to use T-pots or concrete blocks.

Now... The long armed amongst you can try and do this repair from ABOVE, but -- at least where the starter's mounting bolts are concerned -- you'll probably want to do at least some of it from BELOW, with your face a good ways under the driver's side axle. You really, really, REALLY don't want to slide as far under the car as is necessary to complete this job with only a rickety jack keeping you from being squarshed like a grape.

(Remember the scene in Goodfellas where they had that guy's head in a vice? Scorsese was forced by the MPAA ratings board to cut the part where Joe Pesci reaches over and spins the vice handle and the guy's head explodes all over the crew. That's your future if you're under the Explorer's axle and the jack slips. Don't be a fool.)

3. You definitely want a completely cool engine before you do this job. Not only will you have to snake your hand up through narrow, hot parts of the engine to disconnect the starter bolts from the engine (while underneath), but I swear you have to lay across the top of the engine to extract the old starter upwards and out and lower in the new one. (Maybe it will fit down through that little trapezoidal hole in the frame underneath, but I couldn't do it.)

Which brings us to...

It's hard to get a socket on the two main mounting bolts of the starter (done from underneath), much less the disconnects for the various wires to the solenoid. (probably best done from above) I have really long orangutan arms and it was a uber-pain to stretch a socket downward on those solenoid nuts.

Even if you had the car on a rack and were standing under it instead of creeping under, this would still be maddening. When you are under the car, there's an approx five inch trapazoidal hole in the frame where all the tools have to fit through for access to the mounting nuts and bolts.

Brothah, if you don't have an automatic compressor-driven socket wrench (and compressor) borrow one from a friend who does. There is zero room to get torque on a standard socket wrench.

Don't take this as gospel, but as I recall, I think I only really needed two sizes of socket: a 1/2 inch (13mm) did the lion's share of the work. There was a smaller nut on one of the solinoid connections.

However, the lower of the two mounting nuts (the one with the wire attached by a second nut) will require EITHER A BOX END WRENCH ("Oh Jesus, kill me now") or a DEEP-WELL 1/2" SOCKET. Hope that saves you a trip back to the store. The main bolt has the mounting nut welded a third of the way down and is shaped kinda like:

OH! This is important, I guess: If you are doing the majority of disconnections from under the car, You want to disconnect the solenoid wires FIRST. If you pull out the starter mounting bolts, and then snake your socket onto the solenoid connection bolts, the whole assembly is just going to flop around when you try to apply torque, putting stress on the brittle wires. Again: "That's-a no good."

I wish you luck. Job took me three hours, but fully 90 minutes of that were spent spewing profanity and saying, "OH CRAP, this can't be done!" I was wrong. It can be done. It's a "simple component swap repair" rendered challenging by my claustrophobia and some very optimistic design engineers at One Ford Plaza.

Ramps/T-pots are your friend. Buy yourself as much room as you can under the car to work. Chock the back tires so the Explorer can't roll backwards off the T-pots or concrete blocks. An automatic compressor-driven socket ratchet is a bonus.

SUPER TIP: My wife put the shop light on top of the front driver's side tire, shooting into the wheel well and that saved my bacon. It was the only good way we found to light the work area. The light I use didn't get hot enough to damage the tire, but beware that possibility.