mine was easiest without moving the water neck. I unbolted all the harness bolts moved it out of the way and took a cheap rachet and stuck a deep set socket on the endused one hand to hold the rachet on the starter bolts and stuck a pipe on the end of the rachet. Light pressure the bolts poped and i unscrewed them by hand.

I also have small hands which helps

 

I swapped the starter relay and it's too early to tell if it made a difference or not. It SEEMS to have just a little more kick to it now (acceptable enough to leave it be), but I could just be wishing so I'll give it a few days and see if it made a difference or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDdHJY88u6M

Seems better to me? Before it was nearly stopping in mid rotation, now it has a little bit of speed to it. I started it twice in that vid so don't click off too fast.

 

Yeah its fun when your friends have 1uz's and then taking it apart is like making cereal lol.

What are you talking about the SC 300 or 400? Are you talking about a motor or the starter? Asking cause there is a big difference between motors.lol

You just want to procrastinate it as long as possible don't ya lol. Wait a couple more days if it slowly starts coming back the starter is done. It might not even do that and just give out.

 

I don't know if I can be of any help, but i will give you my insight on your situation.

I thought my car had the infamous starter woe. I tested the battery, it came back with more CCA's than it was rated for. It also passed the load tests with flying colors. So i removed that from the possibilities. Tested the alternator, put out mid 14v and plenty of amps. No way it was that. I tested the starter, and it was pulling an incredible amount of amps, and sometimes it would pull barely any. Thinking positively, I then suspected a possibly loose or corroded connection to the starter... Found out that you have to basically pull everything apart to check that out. So i was bummed about my soon to conquer starter swap.

So, upset that i would probably have to change the starter, I felt like doing something random. I went and bought a new battery. 27 series to be exact. I put it in there, and boom. The starter fires up like brand new!!! Every. Single. Time.

So before dropping the money and time into a starter swap, try changing the battery. I believe the one i put in there had somewhere near 785 CA. It solved my problems, and saved me hundreds of dollars.

I hope it helps, let me know if it does.

 

I was wondering how many CCA's did your old battery have? You probably had a low rated battery and it couldn't give the extra amperage after a couple starts. Since it passed the load test that confuses me it shouldn't do that unless it was underrated. How long has the new battery been in there? That might be a temporary solution and it is going out muhahahah!

 

and again............ it's still the starter.

 

and they asked me why i didn't get an sc400 again or a gs400...

 

I'm having this problem as well. Perfect timing. I'm wondering about the battery swap and possibly seeing if that will fix the problem. I'm still afraid that it is the starter though and if so... well... I'm out a lot of money! (just to note, I had my engine "professionally" detailed and since then a mess of problems have occured. NEVER get your engine cleaned!)

 

Cause you totaled it haha. J/K In the end change the starter if the battery change out doesn't work. Have someone else do it if you don't want to cause it is fun for the first timers.