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starter problem or something

1048 Views 7 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  HotRodF100
Hey,

I got my engine al in my gmc jimmy all ready to go.. its a sbc 327 and i got everthing hooked up. WEhne i turn the key it jsut turns the motor for a split second tehn seems to get caught or something and i have to manually turn the engine to get the starter to disengage. Is it jsut that i got the wrong gear on hte starter? If so, is it an easy thing to change? What else coudl cause the starter to do this?

Thanks,
Jordan

PS- I m jump starting it cause my normal battery fo rht ecar is dead, so it ant like its not gettign enough power.
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Well the bendix could be bad but my guess is that the starter needs a shim so it will have proper clearance between the starter bendix gear and flexplate gear. If you lost your shim go to the parts store. Most likely they can fix you up.
I agree with 57cheyyman probably the starter needs shimming, by your symptoms probably 2-shimms
seems to be binding-up, try one then two. you should notice quite a bid off difference. Good luck
ok thanks for the help... i'll try the shims and stuff..... but are tehre differnet starters for different tooth flyqwheels?

thanks
Jordna
howdy old car guy!i'm not sure from your description whether thestarter is still receiving sufficient amperage to turn the engine over.are you using jumper cables?,if so you need to hook up the battery direct[no cables ]as there is a lot of loss when jumping through cables,even really heavy duty ones.when you turn the engine over if you have a ammeter or volt gauge you can watch it to see if power falls off.if you dont have agauge you can turn on your interior overheadf light and see if it dims a great deal.as far as starter gears go i know that my starter will work on 153 or 168 tooth flywheels
Try turning the motor over by hand or with a socket from the balancer end of crank if it will
make a full turn it is surely the starter or solenoid hope this helps good luck
Ok... well i thought it was getting enough power... but it turns out its not.... so i charged the battery and i m gonna try it with the battery in tehre and jumper cablles hooked up.....

thanks,
Jordan
It sounds like you may have a power problem BUT, if you find out that it was a shim problem, be very careful. If it is out that much you are actually trying to flex the shaft on the starter or the starter ring itself. The results are not good, I can vouch for that. Either the starter ring will break out from one of the holes, or the nose piece will break off of the starter and go bouncing across the floor! If it was a shim problem and once it's shimed properly you have a lot of starter noise, check to be sure the starter ring isn't broken. Nothing worse that having to pull the engine again to change the starter ring because of a simple mistake, been there-done that! Good Luck, HotRod
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