ok everyone has told me that this should not be that hard of a thing to do, yet i get down under my truck, the plastic cap covering the larger wire snaps off, the smaller wire snaps off, and now the starter is held on by some godawful bolts that seem to require some weird tool to remove, i have tried metric and i have SAE nothing works. is there some special thing i need to change the starter? or am i just missing something? also how can i fix that small wire? just put a new end on it and bold it up like the old one was?

 

first off, be sure and disconnect both battery cables.

there are 2 wires to disconnect. one is a large cable, with a nut on a stud. the other is a small wire with a disconnect plug. the plug is a little tricky. try not to break it.

next is to unbolt the starter from the bell housing. a nut on a stud at the top, and a bolt at the bottom. probably same size, probably about 15 or 17mm or equivalent. caution, from the factory, they are very tight. it take 2 long 1/2 drive extensions to get the ratchet or pull bar beyond the engine mount or some other clutter.

i don't recall a weird bolt or tool.

 

ummm the small wire is already broken so that warning is a bit late, lol. which is why i asked how can i fix it?

the battereis are disconnected. the large and small wires are disconnected (the small one because it broke) i just have the bolts holding it on.they are definitely not as large as 15 or 17 mm, 7/16 socket is too big and a 3/8 is not big enough, but my metric ones also did not seem to fit.

the bolts are multisided 10 or more not hexagonal ones

 

Find some common sense and then crawl back under to do the job. Good luck.

 

something's not right.. i think you are looking at the wrong bolts.
the starter is a long, heavy *** cylinder. at the rear end of the cylinder, it will be bolted to the bell housing with 2 big bolts/nuts. i think they are the same size, and they are big. 15-17mm. the top one is a nut on a stud. the bottom one is a bolt. take a look. some people accidently remove a bell housing bolt on the top, because its right beside the starter stud/nut.

don't worry about the little wire. you can recrimp that later.

 

ok obviously i was looking at the right bolts because now the starter is off, turns out that it took a 12 point 10 mm wrench, all this fussing for just a little thing, also luckily the starter must have been changed once before because they weren't too tight. so anyways thanks for the advice even though it wasn't very useful. oh and there are three bolts. i think that you might have been thinking of the starter for a small block in a half ton? not the starter for the cummins in a 3/4 ton

 

Since you have no vehicle information in your profile or your signature, no one knows anything about your truck. Hint hint hint.

 

Never cook bacon in the nude.

 

there's a DIY for this... I made

 

Well when you make a thread with no info on your truck are we supposed read your mind on what you have, we go with the law of averages, the average truck in our section has either a 5.2 or 5.9 gas, the cummins guys go to the cummins section for anything motor related.

glad you got your starter off and if you fill out your sig or info we can be of more help next time