I have a problem with hot engine restart. The engine has to cool down after a short trip before it will restart. The starter just will not respond. I have big tube headers and i'm wondering if the starter is too hot. I plan to cover the starter with a heat shield. Question ? Is there something else I can do.
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If you haven’t already, your first task is to disconnect, clean and reconnect your battery to ground strap and the chassis to ZF ground strap.
If that results in no joy, many of us have upgraded to a PMGR starter with universally good results.
Larry
A PMGR starter fixed that issue for me too. I also needed slightly longer studs to mount the starter and there's a slight, but easy wiring change required. Move the big battery cable from the stud on the passenger side of your existing solenoid to the stud on the drivers side, mount it right on top of the big starter cable. This sends full battery power to the new starter solenoid.
Now to control the starter, add a new +/-5' 12 ga wire (red in Rocky's photos) from the 5/16" passenger side stud on the existing solenoid to the .250 male spade solenoid on the new starter. You'll need a 5/16" ring terminal at one end and a female .250 spade terminal at the other end.
All great suggestions. I have had a few of the cheaper PMGR starters crack in different places on the nose section . I only use Powermaster starters now.
Also, have the battery load tested. I recently had a fairly new XS Power battery that had an issue cranking the engine once the car got hot. It cranked it with no problem when the engine was
cold but nothing hot. Showed 12.4V but was not producing the needed amperage. Switched to a Braile battery at the track and everything worked flawlessly even at full track temp.
Ron
Update your car. Bring it into 2019 spec. Three items. One, BMGR starter of the brand you like. Two, a good battery. There are many posts on this sight about the best battery for Pantera. Most Pantera vendors like myself use Odyssey PC925 Extreme Series. three, a modern alternator that puts out enough amps to kick the starter & battery at full capacity. Single wire is an easy installation, available from TuffStuff directly or Powermaster. Select from 100 amp all the way to 150 amp to power EFI & modern A/C w/double condensers [fans]. These item are not expensive.
Why does this car need to be updated to a 2019 spec for a very simple starter sytem? Consider how much are you going to be driving this car? Not much by most. Go to O'Rileys, spend $54.00 for a 72 Mustang Starter. It fits guaranteed, no modifications needed, and it will most likely outlive your ownership. Then run a ground cable/strap from the starter stud to under a motor mount nut. Solved my hot start problem.
I bought a napa starter and optima battery in 2007, I put a heat shield on the starter and the battery only just failed last month. I drive my car a few times a week mininmum.. never failed
rrs1 posted:Why does this car need to be updated to a 2019 spec for a very simple starter sytem? Consider how much are you going to be driving this car? Not much by most. Go to O'Rileys, spend $54.00 for a 72 Mustang Starter. It fits guaranteed, no modifications needed, and it will most likely outlive your ownership. Then run a ground cable/strap from the starter stud to under a motor mount nut. Solved my hot start problem.
It isn't so much that it needs to be updated, it's that at this point, many original starters (manufactured in the early '70s) are worn out.
What happens is that as a new unit, there is little issue with them. As the brushes wear against the armature, the armature wears down. You can take them apart and resurface the armatures but you loose torque out of the started by cutting the diameter of the armature down. It needs to be it's full diameter to do what it was designed to do.
I've seen armatures seemingly 1/2" less in diameter then original.
You can luck out on a rebuild working almost as well as a new starter but these days that's more of a rarity then the rule.
A sure sign that a starter is done, regardless of how recent a rebuild was, is it's inability to turn over a hot engine.
As far as $54 for a rebuilt? We get 'em for $25 from the junkyard when they have them.
By FAR, the simplest (and highly dependable) solution is to put in a Tilton type "race" starter. They seem to have more torque then the originals ever did, take less voltage and are more compact and light weight. I believe the guts of it are out of a Nisan pick up truck?
It doesn't HAVE to be a compact starter though. ACCELL makes a very nice full size unit and if it was blue instead of yellow it would look original. It certainly is a powerful sucker but it ain't light weight and compact.
Of course everyone is entitled to make a fool of themselves and bang their own heads against the wall, hopefully for pleasure. So don't stop on our account. Keep enjoying the pain. I try to limit mine these days. Not enough time. 
Thanks to all of you who responded to my " Hot Engine Restart Problem". I will start with the simplest/cheapest fixes and move to the detail fixes. The starter was replaced with a PI MOTORSPORTS PART and I'm not sure what that is, but the shop was using the Pantera Catalog for the work that I was having done. All that was last fall and I'm bringing the vehicle out of storage.
A.Brown, 74 Pantera #06292
rmccall posted:All great suggestions. I have had a few of the cheaper PMGR starters crack in different places on the nose section . I only use Powermaster starters now.
Also, have the battery load tested. I recently had a fairly new XS Power battery that had an issue cranking the engine once the car got hot. It cranked it with no problem when the engine was
cold but nothing hot. Showed 12.4V but was not producing the needed amperage. Switched to a Braile battery at the track and everything worked flawlessly even at full track temp.
Ron
Ron, what type of Powerstarter do you use on the Cleveland ?
I only can found for Windsor SB.
thanks
Simon
while i agree with RRS1 and the Keep It Simple Sucker mantra, there is a premium aftermarket Made In USA starter available if you wish to take it the next level
When I had this issue it was my MSD module the first and third time, and my ignition switch the second time. No sparky sparky all three times.
fighting the same "no crank when hot"..issue
have a stock Starter and stock flywheel .. does it have the 164 tooth?
Is the off set the same as for 1970+/- Ford Mustangs with 351 C ? (that starter is easier to find in Europe for avoid shipping cost and tax). May be a PM for a "shoping list" 
Danke
matg posted:fighting the same "no crank when hot"..issue
have a stock Starter and stock flywheel .. does it have the 164 tooth?
Is the off set the same as for 1970+/- Ford Mustangs with 351 C ? (that starter is easier to find in Europe for avoid shipping cost and tax). May be a PM for a "shoping list"
Danke
MATG, what ignition timing do you use , maybe 2-3 degrees later can help .
Simon
running Trick Flow heads with 10 adv. static recommended..
Do you know for sure that 0 (zero) degrees is TDC ? It's possible that the outer dampfer ring is a little twisted from the inner ring .
When 10 adv. is recommended , a little later is maybe better , also depends what brand of gas you use , US gas has a higher octane than into Europe.
On the higher comp. engines I use Shell V power (98 )
Simon
On the subject of timing at start up, the Pantera-Electronics Ignition Controller retards the initial advance at start I think 10 or 14 degrees. It does make starting a hot engine very easy. It has none of the reliability problems of the MSD units.
The Ford Motorcraft units do also but don't have as many features.
A Mustang with a 351c uses the same starter as well as a 289, 302, 351w. There are two versions though. One is for a manual trans and the other is for an automatic transmission.
flywheel ring gear offset is a factor making the starter transmission specific. here's a post by RobbMc himself regarding the various offsets & fitments
===============================================
Ford starters are a little complicated. I started working for Tilton in the 1980's and have been designing starters ever since and I still get a little confused at times.
Since the 1960's, most Ford V8 engines (except maybe the new modular motors) use one of three basic starter mounting designs .
The all use the same 9 tooth, 1" diameter gear.
Some use three mounting bolts (such as FE) and some use only two, but fortunately 2 of 3 mounting holes are in the same place so they can be interchanged.
There are three different ring gear offsets (the distance the ring gear is from the starter mounting surface).
SB's and Clevelands with automatics use an offset of 3/4". All FE engines (as well as 5.0L with T5 trans) also use a 3/4" offset. The starter register diameter (ie. the diameter of the hole in the starter mounting plate) is 4.09".
SB's and Clevelands with a 3 or 4 speed manual trans use a 3/8" offset. The starter register diameter is 4.14".
351M/400/429/460 engines use a 5/8" offset. The register diameter is 4.09". The starters for this application are easy to spot as one mounting hole is tapped.
Yes, there are several different ring gears with different tooth counts but this is taken care of by the starter mounting plates. The starter mounting plates for the larger ring gears have the register diameter further from the center of the engine.
I am sure there are exceptions to all the above, but these are the general rules for Ford starters.
If you measure the distance from the mounting surface to the ring gear and measure the starter hole in the mounting plate, you can usually determine which starter you need.
Panteradoug TX..I will see what I can get over here, as Jäckel seams to be out of town for now /hope vacation only...
4VANDPROUD woow I knew there is a lot of detail on it..I will at least measure befor I order stufff..
Top Team TX
Matthias
matg posted:Panteradoug TX..I will see what I can get over here, as Jäckel seams to be out of town for now /hope vacation only...
4VANDPROUD woow I knew there is a lot of detail on it..I will at least measure befor I order stufff..
Top Team TX
Matthias
Roland Jäckel is out of the DeTomaso bussinus .
Hi Matthias -
I sent you an email, but check out these...
This one seems like the right one, but it's kind of expensive, mine was $125.
https://www.cjponyparts.com/fo...-351w/p/M11000MT164/
This one seems like the one you want...
https://www.paperformance.com/mini-pmgr-starter-1881/
Regards -
Chuck / Rocky
As for upgrades, a gear-drive starter is half the size & weight of an OEM-style direct drive starter, so its easier to handle while changing, which also happens if you ever need to R & R the ZF in the future. And being smaller it sits further away from the red-hot headers so it runs cooler. It also develops 30-50% more cranking power than OEMs. An OEM starter is marginal in a high compression 351-C when its hot. Most hot rod shops sell cheap starter heat shields if heat-soak is your problem. But as was said, most electrical problems in a DeTomaso traces to bad grounds. Some owners have heavy ground wires to both the engine AND the ZF, connected to a clean bare part of the frame.
Also, OEM starters used phenolic insulators for the contacts inside the assembly. Cheap rebuilds (or brand new far east 'bargains') use cheap poly insulators. 300 amps of starting current for very long (over 10 seconds or so of cranking) heats the internal contacts enough to melt poly so the contacts sag. The next time you try starting, no electricity gets to the motor windings. If you're lucky (I was!) the 40+ yr old phenolic insulators- which do not melt- in an old starter may fit your dead 'new' starter.
Simon,
Ron McCall posted a couple of years ago to use Powermaster 9504. Just purchased one for my `74 which had 3/8" offset. I had to use the provided shim for proper clearance, longer M10x1.5 studs and enlarge mounting holes slightly. Works great with 10:1 CR.
Tx team, got a CLEAR picture..the offset was my concern, well will also measure the Stock Starter when out..
Matthias
