Hi again!
I just bought the starter for my 97 cavi, after a couple weeks of strangling the life out of my current one. It took me forever to find the damn thing. And guess where its at. Underneath my intake manifold... Sooo, does anyone know what the best plan of attack is for replacing it? The damn 1a auto videos on youtube show the replacement in a sunfire, but the two are quite a bit different. No harness that needs removal ( I don't think ). Does all the work happen under the car? Any pointers would be great.
An for my second question, as it got buried in another posts about my motor mounts, I was wondering how I go about replacing my transmission mount inserts. Do I need to take off the drivers side wheel to get access to them both? I found one that looks like I can get to from up top or underneath, and I'm assuming its the front one. The back one looks to be buried under a bunch of stuff.
Thanks for any help you can give me.
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1997 Cavalier Z24
2.4 liter LD9
5 speed manual
The harness removal in the video, If I had to guess goes to the automatic transmission. Hence why yours doesn't have it. Cav/Sunfire will be practically the exact same under the hood.
i find it amusing that SHOoff has nothing better to do but follow me around & be an unhelpful dick in even cross-forum. - Jon Mick
As said I would guess the wires you seen was the auto stuff. How ever sunfires and cav's are idenctical under the hood as long as you have the same tranny/motor. I have a 97 z24 harness in my 99 sunfire with a 2000 z24 5 speed swap. As for the starter, if I recall 97 had the bigger starter. Where I can't recall how big it actually is, but I would have picked up a 99+2.4 starter since you needed one any way. I believe those are the right years and they are smaller. I want to say the bolts you have is a little to long though, but not exactly sure. I believe the info is on here somewhere though.
Any way the starter you should be able to get out from the bottom. There should only be two bolts holding it on and I believe 3 wires need undone as well. Besure to unplug the batter before you stick a ratchet up in there though. You could pull the intake off and pull it out the top, but you have the egr where it would be more work. The front tranny mount I am pretty sure you don't have to pull the wheel off for. If it is in the same location as the getrag you don't. Then you just take the long bolt out of the body, then I would assume there is 3 bolts on the mount to tranny. The back one you will probably have to take the wheel off to get to the long bolt. Then after that I am not to sure. On the getrag there is three bolts on the top of the tranny for the back mount. Where you have to take the intake off to be able to see them real good. I am taking a guess and saying your tranny should be similar. Where you should be able to get them out with a few extensions.
So I'm having the hardest time with replacing this starter. Its @!#$ impossible to get the starter up and in, and also connect the wires. Not to mention I tore a ground wire, so I had to redneck that all to hell. Is the intake header a lot more work? What's the hard part with the EGR?
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1997 Cavalier Z24
2.4 liter LD9
5 speed manual
I honestly don't know on yours, my 2.4 was a 2000. Which had no egr, but I can comment on the intake itself. You have to remove the top stud/bolt on the alternator, you should see which one I mean. As it blocks the left most bolt on the intake. You don't have to remove the belt or anything though. Then I am guessing here but I want to say there is 7 bolts with I believe 13mm heads. All of them you can get out of the top, how ever you need to have small hands.
The egr I am not sure with, so you will have to look at that.
Wish I had a edit button, if you plan to get the bolts out the top. You also will need a set of rachet wrenchs, that or get clever.
So, I got it in. And let me say, if I met the engineer who made the LD9 in a back alley somewhere, I'd probably kill him.
After I got the bolts out, the starter was rusted to the trans. Luckily there's an auto parts store across the road, and they had penetrating oil. After I got it unstuck, I managed to get the connection nuts off by turning it at a weird angle. That all went fine and dandy. The most difficult part was putting the connectors back onto the new starter. I envy the Whopper Junior small-hands guy. After I got the connectors on, I had to put the nuts back onto it blind, and left handed, from the bottom. I managed to snake a ratchet in between the intake pipes, and tighten the big one. The little one shall remain hand tightened. I then had to remove a bolt from the assembly so that I could wire in a ground (I think) that was on the old one, because I snapped the wire when I dropped the old one out. It took me a good 6 hours of work to do this entire process. I almost lit the car on fire twice, because I was so frustrated.
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1997 Cavalier Z24
2.4 liter LD9
5 speed manual
