I decided to take on replacing the starter since it was making a grinding noise on cold starts. I also wanted to make a guide for the GD3, since I wasn't able to find one here. It took about 4 hours for me.

I used the GE8 DIY and hondafitjazz as guides:
https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...placement.html

Starter Replacement (Without ETCS)

Tools:
10mm for the battery, dipstick, and wiring harness
13mm for the positive cable on the starter
14mm bolt on starter
17mm other bolt on starter (battery side)
Swivel head for the 14mm bolt (I used a 3/8 drive)

Instructions:

1) Lift the car (I use ramps, so this was my first step). Place jack stands.

2) Disconnect the negative terminal on the battery, then the positive terminal (10mm)

3) Remove 2 10mm bolts that hold the wiring harness to the intake manifold.

4) Remove 10mm bolt for dipstick.

5) Remove 10mm bolt on starter that is holding a hose (near the intake filter).

6) Take out the splash guard. I broke a bunch of clips doing this.

7) Remove 17mm bolt holding starter to transmission (battery side).

8) Remove 14mm bolt holding starter to transmission. This is where you get creative. I used the swivel head and a breaker bar from underneath the car to get this bolt out. Actually wasn't too bad.

9) Unplug gray sensor that is in your way of pulling out the starter. I had to use pliers for this. Unplug the signal sensor to the starter. I used a flathead and wiggled it off from the top of the engine. I broke a small piece of the plastic in the process.

10) Pull out the starter, it will still be connected to the battery. Remove the 13mm nut under the rubber grommet. This was a pain for me.

11) Finally remove the starter. Replace with the new starter and put all back together!

Notes: On tightening the 13mm nut on the new starter, I broke part of the plastic housing on the starter. I didn't think anything was misaligned, but just FYI.



Top left gray clip. Right of the starter there's the 10mm bolt holding the hose.


17mm bolt


Torquing the 14mm bolt


Old starter


Old and new starter


Starter removed

 

Thank you! I could be wrong, but 13 mm nut on the "battery" starter relay stud may be sign of starter previously changed (original factory starter typically use 12 or 14 mm nuts); I also noticed 14 mm starter mounting bolt was a lot tighter than usual

 

I bought the car used so it's possible it was changed. But at 150K it looked like the original starter. Even on the new starter I had to double check that nut and it was indeed 13mm.

 

What is the condition of flywheel teeth?
Have no information about Fit (GD3) but on late 80's 4 cylinder Toyotas a gear teeth profile on the flexplate and resulting wear was a root cause for grinding noise (new flexplate has been offered to fix the root cause)

 

All 4 cylinder engines end up with 4 spots on the ring gear with more wear cause the engine always stops at top dead center for 1 of the cylinders..

You end up with some burs of the metal off the starter side of the ring gear, I've managed to fix that a few times with a dremel tool and a 1" sanding disk 80 to 120Grit. Through the starter hole you can grind the burrs off the face of the gear so the teeth on the starter don't drag on them and get noisy. I only do this if its a problem, depending on your driving habits there may or may not be any burrs off the gear from the starter engaging. Just the burs, don't re-profile the gear YOu do have to turn the engine 1/4 turn at a time to get to each sweet spot.

 

I felt the flywheel, but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I didn't crank the engine, so I only felt a small portion of the flywheel.

 

Ah, good to know. Like I said, I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary and from what you said, I'm assuming that would be the same section of the ring gear that the starter engages.

 

When I have a starter out I usually use a wrench to rotate the engine to inspect the entire ring gear.. Just because .. They typically last as long as the engine unless you have a starter stick on and it runs engaged..

 

Makes sense. I didn't really think of doing that until reading your post (d'oh!)

Haven't had a chance to see if it still grinds on cold starts, but it does start up a lot smoother sounding. Hard to describe, but less grindy and more like a purr starting up.

 

Was there a core charge on the starter? If not and you still have the original, pull it apart. Let's see the wear and if a cleaning would have done the trick.

 

I still have the starter and there is a core charge on it. I'd take it apart if there wasn't a core charge on it, since I'm not sure how difficult it is to put it back together.

 

Question, what starter brand did you go for? I'm shopping around for a new starter

 

I went with the Ultima starter from O'Reilly's. It' not the cheapest option, but it has a limited lifetime warranty and it's more reassuring that I can go to a store and talk to someone if something goes wrong.

So far, the starter has been working great. No issues and no more grinding. *Knock on wood.*

 

On 2007 Honda CRV it was "negative" (armature to body) brush wear and one pit on commutator (from arching).
The symptoms were intermittent no start on hot engine or "fading cranking" at times.
Not sure what it will be on Fit

 

I know this thread has been quiet for a year but did anyone have to take the entire intake manifold off like Haynes suggested or were you able to just get by with taking off the air cleaner assembly?

 

I changed the starter last weekend...and Monday night...and finally finished on Tuesday night. It was a difficult job. I did not removed the intake manifold. That may have made the job easier but I can assure you it's not necessary. I did remove tha plastic splash guard under the car, the oil filter, and the oil dipstick tube. It involved a lot of cursing and lying under the car feeling the top side of the starter to reach the bolts. I removed the starter bolts first, then the filter and dipstick, and then the plastic clip-on wire, and then the main power cable that's underneath the rubber boot.

I had never removed a dipstick before and that took a lot of time. By coincidence, I posted about removing the dipstick this morning in a different thread and if you look in my post history you should be able to see a description of how I did it.

 

I replaced my starter today and yesterday...lol ...I had the the same screech during cool/cold weather for the last year that others have described.

Took about 8 hours, had trouble removing the 14mm bolt, dipstick, and 12mm nut on starter amongst others. Unplugging electrical connectors was a PIA.
I ended up unclipping the starter power cable all the way back to the battery to give slack to remove the starter with power cable still attached.
I also broke a bit of plastic when connecting the power cable to the new starter (13mm nut on new starter, 12mm on old)

I bought a new Tyco starter from RockAuto.
It starts like a champ now and turns over so strong that it seems like I have a new battery!
Only thing left is to wait for some cold weather for the final test.
Thanks to PT Aleco and others for all the info.

 

I did it without removing manifold. I removed air cleaner assembly and had to move a whole bunch of hoses and wires out of the way!

 

I'm glad to hear this was helpful!