6 volt starter id

[K-Hawk]

Is there any way to tell a 6 volt starter from a 12 volt starter, if so, will some one please tell me? Thanks K-Hawk . I did measure the teeth on the purported 6 volt systems flywheel and the teeth were 0.60 apart on the flywheel in the Hawk with a 12 volt system car the flywheel teeth are 0. 40 apart

If one did want to run a six volt starter on a 12 volt system would it be possible to add a resister to provide 6 volts to starter and 12 to rest of car ?

Might be nice to wire a resister into a relay so if was really cold you could switch to 12 volts to starter occasionally , would this also be possible?

[r1lark]

Check out this: https://www.studebakerparts.com/stud...s/starter.html

[K-Hawk]

Thanks I will go check that sight right now.

[RadioRoy]

If one did want to run a six volt starter on a 12 volt system would it be possible to add a resister to provide 6 volts to starter and 12 to rest of car?

No.

The 12 volt starter on a Studebaker V-8 draws in the vicinity of 100 amps when cranking (this was taken from an inductive ammeter. Not extremely accurate, but accurate enough for this discussion). A 6 volt starter, for the same amount of torque would draw about 200 amps. That is way too much power for any type of resistor. Besides, the resistor would be dissipating around 1200 watts while cranking.

I changed my 54 V-8 automatic to 12 volts and here's what I did. I put the GEAR from the 6 volt starter into the 12 volt starter. Since the six volt starter gear rides in a larger diameter shaft than the 12 volt starter gear, I had a machine shop make a sleeve so that the gear would fit.

It works perfectly and as long as no one in the future tries to replace the starter, everything will be fine.

The other thing you can do is get a 12 volt starter and a flywheel with a "12 volt" ring gear on it.

When the car companies switched from 6 volt to 12 volt, they began marking the 12 volt components with the numbers "12" or sometimes "12 volts." I do not know how long they continued this practice. The starter should have a Delco tag on it and you could look up that Delco number to see what voltage it is. But I think you already know the answer to your question. I have no idea why the gearing changed when the voltage changed. Maybe so that starters of the wrong voltage could not be swapped into the wrong car.

Are you still deciding between 4 speed, overdrive, and automatic?

[31Streetrod]

All 6 volt Delco starters, generators and distributors had a "black" data tag secured by rivets on the housings. All 12 volt units had "red" data tags. This was true no matter if it was used on a GM product, on a Studebaker or any other applications.

[K-Hawk]

I really like the idea of the 3 speed over drive. I have it and the 4 speed jumps out of 2nd at the worst times. The starter appears o be a 12 volt ironically for a 4 speed as it is 2 1/8 long. However the gentleman I purchased the car from was a CASO long before me and is the person who swapped the original 3 speed for the 4 speed. I am hope full that he used the original 3 speed starter. I commute 30 miles 1 way to work every day and I think the overdrive will allow me more time on the road. Thanks for the information K-Hawk

[SN-60]

Just wanted to mention I thought some posters on this forum put up REALLY good information on Studebaker starting motors on this thread!