Help locating the starter relay

[apham8]

Thanks for the reply, I have the old Denso starter and opened it up today. The contactors were definitely worn down. I will buy the contactors from Toyota and get it rebuilt as a back up unit since the Denso I bought did not have a core charge.

[Jonny]

Since this evolved into a starter problem issue thread here is a link to another one with pics of the internal contacts going bad, for those browsing in the future. The individual contacts cost about $5. It's the one at the positive terminal which sees most of the wear.
https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/...1117#post31117
jw

[Ace MM]

Typically for a bad starter plunger you'll hear a "click" as it jumps forward and it's conductive ring smacks into two starter-motor contacts, BUT the electrical connection doesn't get made because of corrosion & wear.

If it doesn't "click" it might be because the starter solenoid coil that magnitizes to shove the plunger forward is broken, but the intermittent nature argues against that because it'd be a permanent failure. More likely is the contacts in the ignition switch when it's turned to the "start" position are flakey. It might explain your sense of a quicker start sometimes as an intermittent connection in that section of the switch might not always occur at the same key position. For all you know, you've acclimated to having to turn the key farther than normal to get it t..

no bad key connections found, but the keyed start wire to my starter has a 0.375 spade terminal connector that wasnt fully locked.
along with this, i found my original starter connections and grounds seeped into by diesel oil.
starter bench tested fine, so i opened it up and sanded the crusty contacts for the ring.
all connections cleaned up and its not hesitated to start.