Starter Replacement on 1991 2.4L Auto MM

So last week my truck decided that the next thing to go out on it would be the starter. ordered the starter, went to replace it and lo and behold there’s no bolts. WHAT? where’d they go?? unless i’m supposed to be looking on the other side? i looked over the top of the engine between the firewall and the back of the engine, and there’s two nuts in the general area where the mounting holes on the starter are.

To be a little more in-depth, looking at the starter from the engine bay, it looks like the studs have sheared off (how?) and there’s no nut on both of the studs that would usually be protruding from the mounting holes (unless there’s some sort of japaneseness i’m not familiar with here).

Wish I could put a picture in but since i’m posting from mobile I don’t think it’s the correct file type, so i’ll probably move it over to my pc later.

Starters are superglued onto the housing.

It's been a minute, but I think the holes in the starter are threaded. The bolts come in from the transmission side, a real fun angle to work with. A ratcheting wrench would have saved me quite a bit of time.

That's correct. Not sure about access on a 2.4L, but on my 2.6L I hadda get at those bolts from underneath, helped to have a long wobble extension or two, mighta even used a u-joint socket adapter. BTW, the starter bolt torque spec is 20-24 ft-lb (27-34 Nm).