starter problem

[c10chevy69]

My starter seems to have a hard time starting without grinding almost everytime. I have pulled it out and looked at the teeth, put it back with both shims (1/16 &1/32), both shims by themselves, and no shims. Still the same thing. Any ideas? Also can anybody tell me if my original tranny or not. The starter that fits this truck according to AZ is a 72. It is the starter that the bolts are offset from each other and bolt straight up into the trans.

[ZOOMY]

If all else fails, try new starter bolts. If they get bent, the starter will wobble when you're tightening it. This will cause misalignment. NAPA has them on the quik-fix rack or whatever it's called.

[Goose]

I used to have this very same problem. Once I replaced the original starter that went with the engine - in my case it was a 350 block, I could never get satisfactory starter life and experienced the grinding and replaced several starters and a flywheel or two. It just seemed I couldn't re-establish the correct relationship between the flywheel and the bendix using replacement starters except for fairly short times. Finally, instead of going to my neighborhood parts store for another starter and different shims I took my problem to a speciality starter/alternator shop. They recognized my problem and said I needed the heavy duty "Canadian version" of the starter tail housing. They rebuilt my starter using this version and I haven't had a problem. Now I really don't know if there is a "heavy duty Canadian version" or not, but what ever they used seemed to work. Might be worth checking into. There's nothing nastier sounding than a grinding/spin out starter - unless it's a header leak!

[krue]

I experienced a similar problem and finally wound up with a nosecone that uses bolts straight across from each other instead of on a diagonal.

[chickenwing]

What a trip! I've only saw the one on the left. Allways learnin somthing new...

[kaycee]

Don't you have to run a different flywheel for the straight across bolt pattern?Seems like I was going to use that setup but my flywheel was to big.

[krue]

No I only changed the nose cone. Works great.

[c10chevy69]

Where can you get a new nose cone from?

[kaycee]

OK talk about bad luck I went out and started the 69 and the starter is growling bad.I just put a new reman. on it and have not put 50 miles on it since and maybe have started it about dozen times,I'm not even running headers

[krue]

To get mine I went to a local auto-electric shop. They had it in stock. When I told them what was happening that's what they told me would fix it. So far (8 or so months later) so good.

[Pilgrim]

I had the same problem and got it fixed as krue did.

[c10chevy69]

I followed some advice from a friend and got it working. I went to Autozone and bought a starter with the inline pattern for a 72 camaro. I tried to install it and it would not fit of course. I pulled it apart per the advice I was given and swapped the nose cone. Put it back in after straightening out the cover that bolts to the trans (can't remember what it's called) with no shims and it fired up with no grinding. Sounded awesome. Keeping my fingers crossed that this is the fix. Thanks for all the advice everyone.

[krue]

Glad to hear it worked.