starter support bracket?

[trkklr77]

this weekend i chewed up a new flywheel on my 454, the old one was chewed up too hence the replacement. i tried shiming it which is something i have NEVER had to do to any other chevy before but have always heard of poeple doing. i had some shims and a checking rod left over from an old starter so i gave it a whirl.

the gap between the starter armerature and the flexplate was huge about 2x what the check rod was [rod is a 1/8"] so i put in a half shim on the outside as per instructions, it moves the starter gear in closer, not any better, 2 half shims and not helping.

i called my buddy and he said that he always used the support and has never had a problem, ive never had one until now. i cant even remember the last time i even saw a starter support on any vehicle, even at the junk yard.

my starter looks slightly cocked towards the motor so that it is pulling the bendix gear away from the fly wheel, i tried moveing it but it falls right back to that position.

it was grinding friday night till i recharged the battery and it worked great sat and today until 4pm when i went to check the timming, it had less than 30min of total run time[im running strictly off the battery right now]

i know this is a c/f to understand but its $180 i dont have, 2 new flex plates and maybe a new starter and i need help

also: are bbc and sbc starters the same???

[Green Machine]

BBC and SBC starters and noses will interchange and fit, but the BBC generally have larger internal field coils and a larger diameter armature for more torque. About the same size on outside. BBC starters usually have a short copper tube and a longer bolt between the solenoid and the starter connector, because of the larger winding. If you have an aluminum nose on that starter, a fix that has worked for me before, is to replace it with a castiron nose, they seem to work much better.

[manimal]

I just had the same problem!I finally wnet to the wrecking yard and looked for what seemed to be a "stock original" starter. I have chewed up 3 flexplates and 3 starters. I found something very interesting when I had my trans out though, the ring gear was only chewed up on half of the flexplate! so I took of the solenoid and mounted the starter(no trans in the way) and engaged the bendix and rotated the engine.The bendix engage nicely for half of the flexplate then rode up on top of the gears for the other half! WTF!!! so I matched the flexplate with a 4spd flywheel and they didnt match!! So I kept ordering new ones until I got one that matched my flywheel. NOw no more trouble!!