I bought a Britpart unit from Keith Gott about a year ago. We'd only had Ethel, our 1965 88" truck-cab, a few weeks and she suddenly made a horrid crunching noise when we tried to start her.
The original starter drive-gear had shattered, throwing bits of dog and spring into the bell-housing and clutch. That ended up as an engine out job (outside in the snow) and it was a while before she was back together. We then noticed some horrid noises at full lock. To cut a long story short, we SORNed her for most of the year and did a complete front-end transmission rebuild. I also had a lot of fun with the carb and we finally got her back on the road in early January this year.
After a week, she refused to start. The motor was spinning but the dog wasn't engaging. I took it off and found that the washer behind the smaller spring was such a loose fit on the shaft that it could easily wedge itself on the grooves in the poorly-turned shaft. Thinking that that might be a one-off problem, I refiited it but, three days later, it happened again.
We took it back to Keith Gott but they refused to accept it, saying that it was over a year since we'd bought it and it was "clearly used" (even though we said that it had only been used about 20 times). The best they could do was to swap it for another Britpart one that a customer had returned as faulty. They'd tested it and could find no fault.
I fitted that one and it worked precisely six times before failing in exactly the same way. It's going to get binned and I'll try a Bearmach one.
As an aside, we didn't notice that the replacement starter had been supplied without the brass nuts for the terminal. We rang Keith Gott and asked him to post us the nuts but they said that they'd have to charge us for the stamp(!) and that the minimum that they could charge us over the 'phone was £5. Frankly, they can stuff that and we will never use them again. When you think how much advertising costs, it's crazy to lose a customer over 27p.
So Ethel's off the road for another week or so while we wait for a new starter.
To her credit, on her last trip out, she pulled over to let an impatient Jag overtake - and fly straight into a ditch. Out with the tow rope, suppressing giggles, and then some Land Rover magic.
In brief: don't bother with a Brtipart starter and don't bother with Keith Gott.
