Whilest my princess is away, I thought I would replace the starter (dragging).

Any suggestions?

Any warnings?

Any dangers to the vehicle or me?

After only owning this vehicle for 9 months, we have figured out these things have quirks!

If all else fails, ask the forum...Or...Try to avoid disaster by asking first.

 

I read all the forums I could find and watched a youtube or two about changing a starter. The project looked BLEAK. But not for me. Step 1: disregard most of what you have learned about this job. I changed my starter out in under two hours; I worked slow as I didn't want to break anything and wasn't being pushed for time. I can do it faster now that I figured it out.
I did not jack the truck up, remove a front tire nor the wheel well cover. I raised the truck to its highest setting. I used a 1/2" socket set to remove the bolts - they are so over torqued my 1/4" extensions looked as if they were twisting 90 degrees.. The bolts made a popping sound when they were first loosened, that is how tight they were. I finished by using a torque wrench and over torqued the factory recommendation a bit to compensate for the extensions. It was no where near as tight as they were when it was air wrenched in at the factory, I did the first one twice just to be sure I did it right.
I used a breaker bar with a long pipe "torque amplifier", 2 10" extensions and two knuckles, one in between the extensions and one at the socket. I may have also used a shorter extension near the breaker bar. I wrapped electrical tape around the extensions and knuckles and socket. The tape keeps the pieces from coming apart. I double taped the knuckles so they were semi-rigid; the tape stretches so they had the flexiblity they needed. This whole rig came out towards the front of the truck. The top bolt was the easiest for me to remove and install. I needed a helper for maybe a minute to hold the top nut while I threaded the bolt on. It could probably have been threaded solo with a little wedging, tape and gum.
Ah yes, the big trick here - slightly tape the bolt to its wrench socket before you thread it back to the starter. This will keep the bolt in place while it is maneuvered to the starter. The tape will break away from the socket and not interfere with the fit. A variation is to tape only on the bolt head and side to wedge fit it into the socket; the tape is left only on the bolt head and again should not interfere with the fit.
Another thing I relearned is if you can't reach or something under the car, change your position and thus your perspective. I worked from the side as well as from the front of the truck to get to that top nut.

 

And as I'm going through RAVE looking to solve a problem with the positioning of my sunroof - it keeps running after the roof has moved all the forward and all the way up, I see there is a beautiful drawing and instructions on page 9 in the Workshop Manual how to replace the starter. Doh!
Yep, rtfm first...