# Starter Motor



## Qer (May 7, 2008)

I once saw on TV a guy that has built something like a go-cart (although in wood) that was powered with a starter motor and it seemed to run just fine. However more than that it was running on a 12 Volt ordinary start battery they didn't really go into any details like how long he ran it in one go.

I'd say go for it! I mean, it's free anyway, right? Put a big fan to cool it and have fun as long as it lasts! If it burns, it wasn't dimensioned for it anyway and you should go get a small truck motor on e-bay or something.


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## manic_monkey (Jun 24, 2008)

I would take the motor apart, and re-insulate the wires with high temperature insulation. I have heard you can get high temp insulation thats paint on, so a couple of coats of that should help, and a coat or two on the stator laminations would be good. Next i would look at putting some bearings on the shaft. most starter motors have bushes instead of bearings as their intermittent use. Maybe a litte bit of advance on the commutator bushes too? their probably gonna be the weak link.

I dont know what your civic starter motor is rated at, but ive seen Van and tractor starters rated up to 4kw. now that would make a very very fun go kart


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

Tomorrow I am going to be removing the starter motor and I will clean it out and see what ratings it has. I'll have to find some of that paint on insulation. 

So clean it out, redo the insulation and add a cooling system. 4KW would make an extremely sweet go kart! I'll have to find the AMP ratings for the starter. There is a 40 amp IGNITION fuse, but that does not sound large enough to be the actual starting current.


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## 3dplane (Feb 27, 2008)

TheSGC!
Hey man, I think the only "rating" you will find on the starter is 12V.
I honestly don't think you will have to worry about re-insulating either as the wires will look like they are only accessible with a saw of some kind.( I'm being sarcastic).Seriously the ones I have seen looked bullet proof with the wires encased in some kind of epoxy type material.
I don't know if the civic starter has a reduction or not but I think it may have planetary gears built in wich would be good. 
I personally built a gokart powered by a starter (non reduction) and it worked ok for my then four year old doughter in terms of duty cycle. Say 10-15 minutes of fun and then give it a rest. It had no problem zipping me around neither. That starter was a little heftyer then a civic size but had no internal reduction. I had to cut the starter nose off and move the bushing down close to the motor,made a support bracket (for the bushing)
so I ended up with a half inch shaft sticking out. Then it was equipped with a small set screw type pulley (from tractor supply) and that was it for modding it.
Also made three bycicles equipped with starters. Those were reduction statrters from isuzu trucks. Welding cam sprocket(s) to the output shaft to get a "small wheel" that can be lowered down on to the rear wheel of the bike. the bikes would do 22 mph on motor only. And it would free wheel with motor off as an added bonus. If used intermittently (10sec on -10sec off) you could cover some miles. If left on for 14 miles like my friend did to see what would happen.... murdered motor and battery.
So if you keep gearing and attention to temperature in mind you should be okay with something like that.
Barna


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## ww321q (Mar 28, 2008)

That's cool! Now lets see . I have 2 old Toyota trucks and I think they both have the same starters ! I see a small EV starting to take shape . J.W.


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2008)

If you want a small motor you might be better off using an old VW 12 volt generator. It is a series motor with two posts tied together internally and two outside for your input power. I'd almost bet you could run 24 volts with no trouble through one of those and you don't have to worry about bushings. 
Get the one from a Type III and you will have a small motor with two key shaft ends to play with. Get a small 24 volt controller and go to town. These have bearings on each end. They run all the time so duty cycle is not an issue. You could put on a fan if you needed cooling but since these things run for hours on end I'd almost bet a short run at high voltage and amps would be no trouble as long as you allowed for cool down time. I'd trust the generator over the starter for a bicycle motor or small cart motor. 

Pete : )


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