The same engine was also used in many other Ford products during the same time frame. I may add that Ford s Owner Notification Program 97M91 and 97M91-S1 dated January and May of 1998 does indeed address this problem and allows the dealers to the repair exactly as Bob mentioned. I would like to thank him very much for sharing his experience with me and fellow rebuilders. Again My last month s piece about armature rotation brought many comments and I will share a few with you here. All components except drive and field coils LOOK virtually identical.
Field coils are obviously opposite rotation as are the drives.
The units were in very good shape and simply needed cleaning and freshening of the wearing components, armatures and field coils were salvageable. When the armatures were installed the units ran opposite from what they should have. Upon swapping the armatures the starters ran perfectly. Careful dismantling of the finished goods and identification of the components showed that the hairpin connections on the armatures were ONE commutator bar different in their twist even though the direction of the twists was identical. Joey and I had also discussed the problem of computer activated CS alternators that is becoming a source of frustration for a lot of rebuilders.