1997 GMC P3500 V8 7.4L 8th Vin Digit N Starter TRQ STA03003

Okay, friends, the first thing we have to do to get started on our job is to remove our negative battery terminal from the battery. Once that's off, we're just gonna set it so it's very far away from the terminal end. Now we can move along. Now that the battery's disconnected, we're gonna get underneath the passenger side of the truck. Right on the engine's where you're gonna find your starter mounting.

There's gonna be two mounting bolts that we're gonna remove. But before we do that, we need to remove two wires from the actual starter itself. You're gonna have this larger wire right here, which is very easy to see, and then right above that, you're gonna have a smaller wire. Let's remove the pair. Get that wire out of the way, and let's continue on to the smaller wire. All right, that little wire off of there.

Now, let's move along to our two mounting bolts. There's our starter, friends. Now, that we have the starter out of the way, we need to make sure that we clean up the mating ends where both these wires are gonna connect onto the starter. Go ahead and use a piece of sandpaper or whatever you've got. We'll get them so they're a nice clean surface, and then we'll continue.

Now, before we can go ahead and put in our brand-new starter here, let's go ahead and remove this shield off the old starter, and then just transfer it right over to the new one. Make sure it lines up right here. And let's get this over to the truck. Let's go ahead and get this starter up and in here, start with the backside up first. I'm gonna bring this around. Slide this in.

Now, let's start in both of our bolts. We'll snug them up and then we'll torque them to 33-foot pounds. Let's just take these mounting nuts off of here. Now, if you just use a magnet, you can go ahead and remove the washers as well. So now we're gonna go ahead and put that small wire back on there first. You're gonna notice you have a nut, a regular flat washer, and of course, a lock washer.

Essentially, we wanna make sure we get the wire on there. We're gonna use the flat washer, then the lock washer, and then we're gonna go ahead and snug it up with the nut. Okay. I've got that bottomed out. At this point, all we're gonna do is just take it a tiny bit past that, but you wanna be very careful not to over-tighten this because it's a very small stud and if you break it off, well, you need to go ahead and replace the starter again.

Okay. So it stopped right there. I'm just gonna give it a teeny bit more. Give the wire a nice wiggle just to make sure it's completely secured. And now let's do the same to the larger wire. Once again, we'll put the wire on there. We're gonna use the flat washer, then the lock washer, and then the nut. Okay? So it's bottomed out. Just give it a teeny bit more. Give the wire a nice wiggle. Okay. So this looks good.

One last thing I wanna point out real quick is you wanna make sure you don't have this metal end of your wire touching up against the starter, in which case it would be grounding out the power aspect of your wire. So now let's just go ahead and reconnect that negative battery terminal. All right. So that's nice and snug. Let's give the wire a nice wiggle, make sure it's a hundred percent secured. Okay, friends, you got your starter in there. Great job. Now all you have to do is start up the truck, take it for a road test.

Right. First, you wanna disconnect the battery. Use an eight-millimeter wrench. Loosen up on the negative side terminal. Take that off and set it aside.

Now the starter's located on the passenger side of the engine. There's a wire right here that goes to the oil level sensor. I'm just gonna take a right-angle pick, disconnect that connector just so I have a little slack on the wiring. Just release that. Use the pick to slide that out. Disconnect that. Now there's two bolts right here. Use a 13-millimeter socket.

All right. Take these bolts out. You can slide the starter back. Now we're gonna take this bolt out right here. Use a 10-millimeter socket. And out. Now just slide the starter back a little bit. Just take this bracket off. Just set it aside. Goes around the starter.

And you can slide the starter down. And if the wiring's in your way, just slide it out of the way a little bit. There's a little cover right here. Take this cover off. Just slide it up like that. Now we need to take the ignition wire off of here using eight-millimeter wrench and take that little nut off. You just twist the starter to the side the best you can. And loosen it up.

You could also use an eight-millimeter socket if you can get in there. Just try to get that nut off. That works also. And slide the ignition wire off. Then not this nut right here but there's another nut on the other side that holds the positive cable on the starter. Use a 13-millimeter wrench or a socket. Loosen up the nut on there.

Now make sure...before you take that nut completely off, make sure you support the starter. Take that nut off and slide the starter down. Before we put the starter back, just take a wire brush. Just clean the connections just so it's nice and clean so there's a good connection. Just use a wire brush. All right. Take the new starter and line this connector up. There is a lock washer. I'm gonna put that on first. And then put the nut on. And tighten that up. So make sure you put it on the right stud. Don't put it on this other stud. And tighten that up. And if you have the ability to get a torque wrench in there, you can torque that to 80 inch-pounds. Do the best you can. Make sure you're on inch-pounds, not foot-pounds. All right. That's tight. Now take the ignition or the starter wire. Get that lined up over the correct stud.

It's kinda hard to see. You can't really see what we're doing. You kinda have to go in blind a little bit. Slide that on. And there's a lock washer for that as well. And put the nut on. And again, if you can get a torque wrench in here to tighten this down, you can torque that to 30 inch-pounds. Make sure you're on inch-pounds, not foot-pounds. And with those bolted on, you can take the shield. Slide the shield back in position. And then slide it back. You slide that starter somewhat in position before you put the...this bolt back in. And you get that bolt lined up. Now snug this bolt down.

And take the two starter bolts. Get these started. And we'll torque those 2 bolts to 37 foot-pounds. And reconnect the oil level sensor. Lock it in place. Then you can reconnect the negative terminal on the battery. Just get that started using an eight-millimeter wrench and tighten it up. Just snug it and then just make sure it's not loose and it's good to go.