Starter, To replace or not replace that is the question…

2003 SR5 4.7 355,500 miles original owner (In Florida), daily driver.

I have a small radiator fluid leak around the heater bypass gaskets. Ordered parts to replace those gaskets along with new intake manifold gaskets. Yes kind of a big PIA job. Some great YouTube Videos out there. A couple by David Clark show how to remove and replace with some shortcuts.

My question is should I replace the original HD starter while I’m in there?

Has not shown any indications of problems just high mileage.
I’m of the “Don’t fix unless broken” mindset but a lot of miles and it being such a big process to replace since it’s under the intake manifold???

Thoughts?

How many miles till you had to replace your starter? (If you have)

 

I'd rather do a starter on a 1 st gen vs a second Gen.

With that said, I've heard of no failures of 1st gen starters.

If you are removing the intake, might as well swap out that starter.

 

There is also a rebuild kit with new magnet brushes, that’s usually the main wear item in them that would cause issues/go bad overtime

 

This^

 

Starter contacts failed in mine at 115k or so miles and are failing again at 275k miles. Starter is still original and spins strong when it connects. But it’s been clicking occasionally instead of starting. Same thing it did last time.