Hello All,

This might be a stupid question but here it goes. I got a starter from autozone or something because mine failed or so they said so at the store :/ . The new one doesn't have a heat shield but I kept my old one. I didn't have a tap/die set at the time so installed the starter w/o it. During this same time I was replacing tons of parts at were taken from my car (it had been stolen and parts cut out) so I installed the starter and moved on to other issues.

Fast forward 4 years and my tranny blew and is now out of my car. Now that my starter is out I went to see about tapping a hole to mount the heat shield but when I now looked at the starter it appears that the spot to tap the hole is on the block side of the starter, not the header side.

So question is, did I install the starter upside down 4 years ago or are the spots for power and signal flipped since the starter is meant for a front wheel drive mounted 4age? If so can I flip the starter, tap and install the heat shield?

Thanks, kedar

The starter don't care which way is up (apart from the drain) You will need
to check that the fixing bolt holes are at 180 degrees, and that nothing is going
to be in the way when you rotate the starter. Then, so long as the wires can be
connected without shorting out, you are good !!

Of course, if you have the old style starter with a covered nose like this...



... you are out of luck

Cheers... jondee86

same thing happened to me, my oem starter finally gave out a few years back, i got an autozone or oreilly replacement and it was flipped. It was a fucking bitch to hook up the positive lead with it facing the block and all. Starter works fine, but aftermarket ones may be flipped due to also being compatible with other engines probably.

Did you core out the old starter, or it available to buy from you?

Traded in the core sorry

Wouldn't it be much better or more efficient, even cheaper to have one rebuilt? like at a local speed shop?

Having worked at a part store for more years than I want to admit (and that was only 3), parts listings aren't always correct for our cars. Its best to look up parts on a place like RockAuto.com and get pics of the part you need and give the place you are shopping at the part number(s). The company I worked for had around 20 stores but they still had an old cataloging system. Some stuff said Corolla (RWD) and was the correct listing while others listed it as Corolla GTS (4AGE) and was incorrect. Best to do your own homework on this stuff sometimes. I don't trust parts guys. They generally don't give a $hit.