Technical Starter motor trouble.

[Albert Alfvag]

Hello fellow panda folk.
The starter motor on my panda 4x4 999cc i.e. cat from 1988 has started turning really slowly and without oumph, to the point where the engine wont start half the time. It has been hesitating a bit when you first turn the key for a few months now.

So I think it's time to find a replacement.
When looking online there seem to be a few different options like 9 or 10 gears on the pinion and also a few different effects.

Does anyone know the correct specs that I should get?

Cheers!
/Albert

 

[binhoker]

i have 2 starters for 999cc engines her both are magneti marelli 63221890 and have 9 teeth. i just bought a replacement of eBay as after spending some time attempting to refurbish my starter i realized solder wouldn't stick to the field winding as it was made of aluminlium. the new starter is listed as a replacement for 63221890 but has skinnier motor and 10 teeth. i assume it will work fine but cant try it as my engine is in bits.
my car was originally an i.e. cat but now has neither IE or cat fitted, there are not many of them in my part of the world

 

[Albert Alfvag]

i have 2 starters for 999cc engines her both are magneti marelli 63221890 and have 9 teeth. i just bought a replacement of eBay as after spending some time attempting to refurbish my starter i realized solder wouldn't stick to the field winding as it was made of aluminlium. the new starter is listed as a replacement for 63221890 but has skinnier motor and 10 teeth. i assume it will work fine but cant try it as my engine is in bits.
my car was originally an i.e. cat but now has neither IE or cat fitted, there are not many of them in my part of the world

Oh really 9 teeth for the 999cc. After I started this thread I realized I hadn't looked at ricambio if there was any difference between starters for different engines (I only checked autodoc and got results showing both 9 and 10 teeth). The starter listed for the 999cc models have 10 teeth so I ended up ordering one like that from a Swedish website.
My panda is my daily driver so I don't have time to remove the starter just to check, and to be honest I don't feel like doing it in the dead of winter anyway. The new started will have to be fitted by a workshop (also because winter) and I just hope it'll fit.

I think most of the pandas sold in Sweden were i.e cat for emission regulations. But they only sold somewhere around 100 panda 4x4s in total, all 1988.

Thank you for the input, I appreciate it!

 

[Albert Alfvag]

Just a little update in case it can benefit someone in the future searching for this info.

The replacement starter I bought had 10 teeth. When I removed the old one it turned out to have 9 teeth. The diameter of the pinion however was larger on the new one so the distance between the tops of the teeth (that's where I happened to measure) was the same as on the old.
I was worried that the slightly larger diameter would cause problems in meshing with the flywheel, but now I've mounted everything and it seems to work fine.

Cheers,
Albert