[Paul Workman]

Regarding the starter, I seem to recall some discussion on the board suggesting starter electrical contacts issues begin showing up on some cars at about the 30k miles. At 40k, the copper ring on the solenoid "slider" in my '90 was quite pitted and carbon-looking tracing covering the surface was nearly complete. AND! The contact posts were badly erroded.

I bought a kit off ebay and discovered that (new) thrust pin (that pushes the starter gear to mesh with the ring gear) was about 5mm short . So, I used the new contact posts, but R&R'd the copper ring on the original slider with some emory cloth. Works fine now for another 25k miles so far.

As for the bearings being "weak", that hasn't come up, long as I've watched this site, FWIW, some 5 years now.

Enjoy your toy!

P.