[LPete]

Chevy did use a brace, but I don't know how common it was. I know they were on a bunch of starters I replaced. Google "chevy starter brace".

I think they're important -- 30 or so pounds hanging on two bolts at one end seems like a bad idea to me. That's a lot of leverage. I do agree that it's not common to see problems caused by a missing one.

[FrankieT/A]

I have to be honest in that I do not use the bracket either. But most Chevy starters have the bolts staggered so the bracket may be less important. It's not the weight of the starter that's the problem. It's the harmonics of vibration that would be more of a concern. A few months back I promised myself the next time my car is on my lift I was going to put the bracket on.

[GPMESQ]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

Take the left motor mount bolt out and jack the left side of the engine up to get it out if you have to.

It would appear that the only thing that would help me get the starter out would be to move the motor back...the only way out is forward and it runs into the cross member.

Anyway, I bought the bolt and plan to reinstall the rear mount. I can replace the wires without dropping the starter and as long as the starter does not die I am leaving it...

[Sirrotica]

As the motor rises you should have enough room to go over the crossmember and tilting the starter will facilitate removing it. I know for a fact if you don't tilt it end to end the starter won't come out. Tipping it lets the nose come out of the bellhousing allowing it to drop down. It's a little difficult to get out, but it does come out.

Just for future reference in case you decide to remove it at some other time.

[GPMESQ]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

As the motor rises you should have enough room to go over the crossmember and tilting the starter will facilitate removing it. I know for a fact if you don't tilt it end to end the starter won't come out. Tipping it lets the nose come out of the bellhousing allowing it to drop down. It's a little difficult to get out, but it does come out.

Am I tilting the front (actually rear) of starter up or down?

[gtohurstjudge]

The extremely rare incidence of broken blocks at the starter mount is
a result of an amateur installing a starter and not torqueing the starter bolts properly.
Starter bolts have to be ***hole tight. Every case I have ever seen of this was on a
Chevrolet small block v-8 of 1970's vintage, where they never had a front brace to begin with.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by gtohurstjudge

The extremely rare incidence of broken blocks at the starter mount is
a result of an amateur installing a starter and not torqueing the starter bolts properly.
Starter bolts have to be ***hole tight. Every case I have ever seen of this was on a
Chevrolet small block v-8 of 1970's vintage, where they never had a front brace to begin with.

That is incorrect, that starter was installed without a brace and was on the engine for a few years before the block broke. In case your not aware of the fact a large load is placed on the 2 block bolts as they engage the flywheel and while the starter is cranking and will eventually break the block or a bolt because the starter is trying to twist at the leverage point where the bolts are. The phenomenon is aggravated with high compression or timing that is trying to kick back the engine. The brace stops the rear end of the starter from being able to twist applying a shear load to the the block and bolts. The bolts are designed to hold the starter to the block, the twisting side load on those long bolts applies plenty of force to side load the block and bolts. The brace is to stop the twisting motion, not hold the weight of the rear of the starter.

As I said before Pontiacs almost always used the high capacity high torque starter and the chevies seldom used it. The more torque applied by the starter to an engine that turns over hard to start with is more likely to shear the mounting points off.

If there were not a problem with starter bolts parts stores wouldn't stock them in SAE as well as metric. The people that come in and buy starter bolts didn't just mislay them and not remember where they put them, they shear off and sometimes the block also breaks off. 99 times out of 100 the rear brace was left off. It's there for a reason and you can't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, after turning wrenches for over 40 year for a living I do know a little about GM starters, blocks and bolts and braces.

Once the block breaks off as the picture shows the engine block is pretty useless to anyone that doesn't have the ability and aptitude and tooling to repair it. To me saving a possible broken block and a bunch of aggravation to repair it or replace it is worth the time to re-install the brace and keep that numbers matching or heavily modified race engine intact. Neither one has much use if you can't bolt a starter to them.

If you feel that the engineers knew little to nothing about the mounting and feel the brace is excess weight, then that's your opinion, leave it off. I'm not saying every engine with the brace removed will break the block or bolts, some under the correct circumstances will. I guess it all comes down to "Do you feel lucky"?

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by GPMESQ

Am I tilting the front (actually rear) of starter up or down?

The rear up, and the nose (the part that goes into the bellhousing) down.

[gtohurstjudge]

W'ere going to have to agree to disagree on this. I too have been in
the car repair business for 40 years, and in that 40 years I have seen three broken
blocks, all Chevys from the seventies and early 80's that never had a strap to begin with.
That's not exactly a lot of instances in 40 years of working on cars all day long every day.
You would be much more likely to be struck by lightning than have it happen to you. I still
think it's caused by not tightening the bolts enough, either that or the block castings were
defective to begin with. One thing I know for sure......40 years from now if my car is still
around, the starter still will not have fallen off. If it was going to fail it would have done so by now.

[Bluesugar]

I just had my Judge on the lift for 2 weeks,I was changing the complete exhaust out on it,..I saw that the motor mounts were completely collapsed(rubber had lost all retention)and the motor mount block bolts were hardly visable,..but there was the brace(I'm calling it the front brace since it faces the front of car)that bolts to the rear of the motor block mount.I decided to change mounts!!,..Wow,I hope to never do that again while the engine is in car,It was acomplished with much reserve(very difficult with ram air manifolds)but did I put the front starter brace back on?,you bet I did,it serves its purpose as it was intended,..never leave it off,..also I must say that my '70 LT1 vette vert. has always had its front starter brace installed when changing out same,it came from factory with it and it will live with it!

[Sirrotica]

It took me about 5 minutes to find 5 posts on the net about missing starter braces and resulting broken blocks or starter bolts, you must be right, the engineers are crazy


1) Is there a bracket mounted from the front of the starter to the side of the block? if that is missing, that is why the starter mount on the block got cracked. These starters are prone to cracking the block without that bracket. Whatever you do to fix it, make sure you put that bracket back on or the same thing will happen. Good Luck

2) Hi all,
I recently bought a 94 1500 with a 6.5 turbo. Two week later the starter was loose and when I pulled it out to take a look the ear on the block was broke off. I haven't been able to find anyone willing to weld or braze it. Anyone know of a fix? The front brace is missing also.

3) Main cause of broken starter bolts is the bracket on the rear of the starter is not installed.Did your starter have the bracket?I would not use the starter without that bracket on.Starter bolts will keep on breaking!!!!

4) ah, what he said! I had the exact same problem with the starter not engaging and it turned out to be one loose and one broken bolt. I had no support bracket that mount the starter to the engine block. Had to order through dealer (would be an easy scrap yard part if you have one nearby) for the cost of about $13 . You'll need a 1/4-20 bolt to attach starter to bracket.

5) This is common damage found on Chevy's that are not using the forward bracket on the starter. That bracket is often overlooked as it appears to be too small to react any substantial load from the starter, so many people omit it. In reality, it is a significant part of stiffening the stater mounting by providing a 3 point mount that triangulates the forces involved in cranking the engine. When that bracket is missing the stater wants to bend and twist on the forward mounting bolts. This places a lot of side load on the cast mounting boss, which it really isn't strong enough to support so the side blows out. This usually signals the end of the block's useful life as there isn't a sufficiently good and inexpensive way to repair this. Inserts can't replace the strength of the missing casting and welding cast iron is expensive and hardly ever successful even with full block heating which also leads into re-machining all surfaces.

If you choose to think "it won't happen to me", that's fine. The truth is it does happen, and there is a reason that brace is there.

BTW, Chevy B/B and small blocks have starter braces too:

small block GM PART # 3965588

big block GM PART # 3965589

As the aluminum casting and the bolts wear because of torque and twisting, the starter can move further away causing severe starter noise, if left long enough can strip the teeth from the ring gear. I know, you never saw a stripped ring gear either.

The starter can actually loosen the bolts due to engine harmonics and the starter will bounce on the 2 bolts and loosen them up or stretch them. Now if you over torque them

(***hole tight)

and stretch them until they act like a rubber band they may stay tight.

Me, I'd rather put the brace on and not tighten those bolts so tight it begins to pull the cast iron threads out of the block, your results may vary.............

[GPMESQ]

Look at the controversy that my innocent thread, whining about 4 hours wasted playing with my starter, has begun!

It was a pain to remove the front bracket but I am going to put it back on...the new starter bolt/stud is on the way...whether or not it would ever break the block, it sounds like cheap insurance to me to have it in
place.

Being a "shade tree" Bubba type I usually just (over) tighten everything by hand...what is the correct torque setting for the 2 starter bolts?

There was no nut on the stud in the rear support...should it be secured firmly with a nut on the stud or float?

[Sirrotica]

Yes there should be a nut on the stud, 1/4 inch. A split lock washer should be between the nut and the brace.

35 Ft lbs. 3/8 inch starter to block bolts.

[GPMESQ]

Well, i can honestly say that if the starter goes in my car I will have to sell it.

Spent the day under the car Saturday. The starter does not come down. It runs into the cross member when trying to move it forward. You would have to raise that motor pretty high to get that starter out.

So I had to work in that confined space with the starter half down. By the time I played around reinstalling the inspection shield (I pulled that down originally as I thought it was interfering with starter dropping) routing of the cable and wires (advise here for position at 7:30 was spot on) re-installation of stud and rear support (took me a while to figure out the stud was originally in the wrong position on this starter..it goes in the lower position) and then reinstalling the starter with the shim!?!?! Honestly, WTF do we need a shim? I never had one on any other GM, Ford or Mopar I have ever owned but the damn thing fell out when I removed the starter so I had to put it back. What a royal P-in the A.

I had noticed from the first time I depressed the clutch it was hard and made a creaking spring sound. I saw 2 spring on the clutch fork, one rigged to the stud on the exhaust manifold and knew this could not be correct so I had ordered a set of springs.

The kit came with a nice little diagram and I quickly realized there was no spring on the Z-bar to frame mount; seriously, why do people rig up sh*t like this? So I installed the Z-bar spring and removed the 2 off the clutch fork and put the anti-rattle spring on the fork. And yet another royal pain as there is no room to get a hold of that Z-bar spring in order to pull it down to the frame mount.

It was a day of simple tasks that were all a battle of patience and perseverance. And I still have to adjust the clutch as there is no free play at the top of the pedal at all.

So, a little work here and there has turned into quite a bit of work performed in the last 3 weeks. I hope to start her tomorrow.

[theamcguy]

Originally Posted by gtohurstjudge

Ditch the starter bracket......I threw mine away in 1972 and my starter hasn't fallen off yet! That bracket is a major pain in the *** and has no function other than to irritate the
hell out of you when working on the starter. Another bracket I threw away in 1972 is the rear lower A/C compressor bracket that goes from the middle cylinder head bolt to the rear
of the A/C compressor. That silly bracket that makes it impossible to change the spark plugs was put on there by a moron engineer at GM , who if he had bothered to run the numbers,
would have discovered that King Kong couldn't tear that compressor loose with the other brackets holding it in place. If you route the wires like I told you with no tube and do away
with that stupid bracket, you will find it takes 30 seconds to remove the starter or install it. With that setup, all you will need to do is remove the starter bolts, pull the starter straight
forward till the starter nose clears the flywheel cover, then tilt the rear of the starter down and pull it out.

I believe those brackets serve a purpose, as the factory would not have spent the time and money on design and tooling if no purpose was served. I seem to remember on the starter bracket it was there to help support the load.

[Sirrotica]

If you've ever heard a car crank that is in need of starter shims that have been removed it makes a horrendous noise because the teeth of the starter drive are too deep into the flywheel ring gear teeth. The shims are there to get the correct mesh between the two gear sets, they are needed.

I'm really at a loss as to why the starter won't come out of the car because Pontiacs although not simple to remove on a scale of one to ten are probably a 3. The worst starters are some of foreign cars and older ford big block engines, in say a Thunderbird mid 70s vintage are a real pain because the steering linkage is in the way and to wiggle the starter out the wheels need cut all the way over to get the starter around the idler arm and center link. I'm wondering if someone has the frame mounts in the wrong place on the crossmember as you have already posted, making the engine too far to the front of the car. It's hard to discern the problem without laying eyes on the actual car, because as I said i have changed many many starters in A body Pontiacs with no drama, and they come out pretty easily.

Glad you have sorted out some of your problems and gotten the clutch linkage working properly.

[Greg Reid]

Can't imagine why your starter is so hard to get out. I've changed them many times over the years on my GTOs and the worst problem I've had is that on at least one of my cars, I had to loosen the manifold to downpipe bolts and drop the driver's side pipe a couple of inches to clear the starter...and the fact that the thing weighs 700 pounds and you have to bench press it while it's 4 inches from your neck.
There is something definitely askew in your setup. I don't mean to ask a dumb question...but you did remove the tranny dust cover didn't you?

[GPMESQ]

Could the wrong motor mounts be used, positioning the motor too far forward? The motor was out of the car and gone through many years ago. Maybe they re-installed with the wrong motor mounts?

What would be the easiest way to determine if that is the case?

And if so, wouldn't the trans mounts and everything else not line up?

I did remove the inspection cover last week. I thought with it out of the way the starter might drop out. That is how close it is to coming out. I was able to reinstall it around the starter on Sat. Why do you ask?

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by GPMESQ

I did remove the inspection cover last week. I thought with it out of the way the starter might drop out. That is how close it is to coming out. I was able to reinstall it around the starter on Sat. Why do you ask?

Because I thought the same thing.

[mysons69]

Yeah, reviving an old one...

I'm a brand new member here, but I've been on gtoforum for about a year (bought a '69 last March to work on with my son; his money) and I've been reading up here, been meaning to join, finally found a need to do so.

Regarding this starter bracket issue, I have to respond. Just this weekend we put in a new clutch kit. Car came with a Saginaw, swapped to Muncie M20. That part went fairly well...

Long story short, see the attached pics. In case it's not clear, it is the outboard starter mount boss, snapped completely off from the block. The bolt you see is there just to hold it in place.

FYI, there was no bracket on the starter when we got the car; didn't even suspect there should be one. Either way, we have swapped the original starter out for the RobbMC starter, so no bracket there anyway.
Is the lack of the starter bracket the cause of this catastrophic failure?
Did years of starter torque and twisting weaken the boss until it finally quit?

I don't know, and I never will. But I've got to say, for the cost and relatively minor hassle involved, is it worth not using the bracket? Look at those pictures again, and tell me it's a chance you're willing to take. Whether we can repair this or not, when it's better, you can bet there'll be a starter bracket attached, one way or another.

There's a really good chance this engine is trashed at this point.

I just wanted to share this to hopefully save someone else from this hassle.