First, a good floor jack is vital! Wear safety glasses so dirt and crud doesn't drop in your eyes.

1. Pull the underbody protection below the engine.

2. Pull the underbody protection bracket on passenger's side.

3. Disconnect the batteries

4. Remove the air cleaner assembly, and angle rubber air plenum (leave the plastic part on the engine) (makes life much easier, trust me...)

5. Remove the clamp holding the battery cables to the plastic fender well.

6. Pull red (positive) battery cables from the clamp.

7. Disconnect the red (smaller) wire in-line connector, usually somewhere under the alternator. This is much easier from above, but can be done from below. The connector locks, study it and you'll see how it comes apart. This is the main power feed to the Hummer, BTW, make sure it is fully connected when you are done.

8. Fish the positive cable down below the Hummer.

9. Underneath: Remove the clamp that holds the battery cable, and the solenoid wire to the bracket that comes down past the oil pan.

10. Unscrew the solenoid wire from the solenoid.

11. At the front of the starter, just rear of the engine motor mount, remove the bolt/stud/nut. A longer 3/8" drive ratchet extension works well on this. You don't have to fully remove this stud/bolt/nut, just loosen it up.

12. Put jack under starter. This doggie weighs about 70 pounds, the jack is necessary.

13. Pull the two bolts holding the access cover at the flywheel bell housing, and remove the cover.

14. Remove the two bolts holding the starter to the engine.

15. Slowly lower the jack and the starter should rotate and drop out.

16. Be careful, it's heavy! (Did I already say that?<G>)

I've gotten so that I can do a starter R/R and rebuild in under two hours, but don't expect to do it that quickly on your first try.

Reinstallation: reverse teh above steps... <g> Getting the two bolts into the block can be a bit of a @#$%, but you'll eventually get it right. Don't ever cross thread them: if they don't screw in by hand, I don't recommend hitting 'em with a ratchet!

Shims: You should check the clearance between the starter bendix gear and the ring gear. If you can't do this (it is a complex process, not well documented) replace with the same number of shims that you took out. Make sure the shims are aligned with *both* holes, if you miss the inside hole, you can break a mounting point, bolt or starter nose piece. Hint: If the starter bendix seems to bind and not retract (usually you can start the engine one time, and the second time you can't get the starter to do anything) you probably need more shims. I use a combination of standard thickness and half thickness shims to get the clearance right. If the starter seems noisy (a gear noise) you may have too many shims in, try to remember how it sounded before: it should sound the same once you get the new starter in.

Peter H.