Can anyone give me some tips on lining my new starter motor up with the gearbox. The gearbox dropped after removing the faulty motor, now i can't even put back my original starter. It is very close in fact i can see the bolt pushing the bracket as i tighten the bolt but it doesn't seem to be catching the threads.

carefully jack up the tranny?

__________________

Is your gearbox connected to the engine with some other bolts? It should, so it wont drop when you remove the starter motor.

__________________

There are only 3 bolts connecting the starter motor and when these are undone and the starter is removed the gearbox lowers a few inches? You are supposed to support the gearbox when removing the starter but the gearbox still dropped - maybe i didn't have the jack in the right place? Hopefully i will be able to reposition the upper and lower brackets that the starter motor bolts onto.

I always placed the jack just under the flywheel housing. Alsways worked perfect. The problem is that one of the bolts of the starter is also a bolt for connecting the gearbox to the engine.

Suc6

just jack it up and giggle the truk out of it, and watch the bracket on the other side of the engine mount isnt twisted

oh, I understand, your gearbox with engine dropped. And now the mounting holes don't line up.

Just jiggle a bit, jack it up, it's not that difficult, i did it today in 15 minutes.

__________________

Thanks for all your help, i've got the new starter motor fitted. The reconditioned one i bought was shorter and fatter so it was a lot more difficult doing up the existing bolts and aligning them. The top bolt was a pain in the ass!! I used a long lever on the bracket to pull the bracket away from the engine and the thread caught. The brackets have holes for levering it into position. I put the jack underneath the flywheel and aligned the bottom two bolts first, then i levered the top bracket so the bolt would locate. Just in case anybody else has to do this!

ok, good to hear you fixed it