Maggie’s Turn
In a very timely fashion, with the lift newly installed, the Magnum decides to not start. To be honest I’ve had starting issues for some time and had always attributed it to a bad battery and/or cold start. But with the lift available, and borrowing some manpower from my neighbour Jesse, we pushed her up onto the planks and lifted her up.
Couldn’t get her quite as high as the Cobra due to the roof hitting the garage door opener. If I moved to the centre bay I could install high lift rails and get her higher, but it was quite high enough really to get some nice access underneath.
What was immediately apparent was that the starter motor was dead – the power cable had corroded all the way through. No way that was a repair job – a new starter was in order. Also evident was quite how tough these New York winters are on a car. 12 winters of salt and snow and 225,000 miles haven’t been kind to poor Maggie.
It took an hour to remove the starter which I managed to do without having to drop the steering rack – something that was supposedly necessary on this AWD model. Then another 45 minutes to get the new shiny starter in place.
An AC Delco ‘pro’ model that I got at from Amazon. Dropped her down, reconnected the battery, and presto … started right up. And wow, what a difference – this starter is so strong I feel like I could run the car on it!