Buick V6 starter woes...bad ground?

After 10 years of use and abuse, the starter on my Buick V6 quit. It began to randomly just give the dead solenoid "thunk" and no spinning of the starter motor. It was a "new" reman from NAPA. I finally got around to replacing it and got another reman from NAPA. It gave me two 5 second crankings (motor didn't fire) and "thunk" the starter motor doesn't spin.

On this newest starter, I noticed an electical post on the back of the starter motor housing. It's actually one of the long bolts that holds the whole start motor and housing to the cone. Is this for a ground wire?

I wasn't happy to say the least to spend the extra money on a new (ok - reman) starter and have the same problem.

 

Check your battery, then try by-passing he ignition switch...it could be your ignition switch.

 

mine did the same thing...went and bought a new starter and it didn't change. cleaned all the battery connections on both the battery and frame and that fixed it for me..brought the new starter back and still using my old starter. make sure you clean the mounting surface of the block where thestarter makes contact as that is how it gets it's ground. too much oil and dirt is a bad thing.

 

Ditto to Oddfire. Don't forget to make sure you have good connections at BOTH ends of the battery cables. And the engine-to-frame ground strap if the battery doesn't ground to the block directly.

 

That stud on the back is for the starter brace that bolts to the block. Like the other guys, clean and check all your connections and make sure you don't have a cable with a break in the middle or corrosion somewhere under the insulation.

 

Thanks for help everybody. I'll be crawling back under asap.
Didn'tknow anything about a starter brace. Mine didn't have one when I got it.

 

The buick starter (and others) have a bolt hole midways on the starter barrel for the brace to block. Chev, Caddy, pontiac etc used a brace from the long barrel bolt to the block. Re-builders build these starters to be used universally. That 225v6 starter is the same as a chevy only with the special 225v6 drive end housing.

 

I put a starter on from a Chevy 230 6 and it works fine, am I in danger of screwing something up?

 

Not likely. It either works or not. I did not know the Chevy 230 6 had the same drive end housing as the 225V6 buick! That's good to know.