[ChevLoRay]

I had a time, once, trying to figure out my starter problem. Seems that my starter was "sometimin'" , meaning sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. The bendix would engage most of the time, but not all. So, one cold December day, I had to pull the starter off. I took it into the house and let it warm up. I had a new bendix to put on it. When I took the nose off of the starter (putting in new brushes, too), a bolt fell out of it. Seems that the gear on the bendix was occasionally contacting the bolt, and preventing it from engaging the flywheel. I don't think that is your problem, but I just wanted to throw it out for tickles and grins.

The following is another story, but it explains the bolt in the starter nose. A dealership in Little Rock had replaced all of the Torque convertor bolts to address a complaint that the previous owner had about a clunking noise in the front driveline ('76 Blazer 4WD). After they had spent almost $2K to fix the clunk (part time kit, and a bunch other stuff), I fixed it by greasing the slip yoke on the front drive shaft.