[Gator67]

My Meziere starter was quietest with one .015" shim. It seemed a little noisier than ideal, but I didn't think it was that bad. I ran it this way for about 6 months. Had no idea what was going on until it was too late. Am I correct to assume that I shouldn't have shimmed it? If so, why would it have made more noise without the shim?

[Nicks67GTO]

I've busted the ring gear on my flywheel before due to a timung issue I didn't know was happening. It's easy to change. Order the ring gear from summit, pound the old one off, find an acetylene cutting torch, heat the ring up a bit and drop it on.

[Gator67]

My concern isn't so much changing out the ring gear... Just want to figure out where I went wrong with my starter install…never had this happen before.

[Old Man Taylor]

What clearance did you measure on the tooth contact when you installed it?

[Blued and Painted]

It took .065 to get the zing out of my combo. Think its still just a little tight.

You will probably need a new starter drive also.

[JUDGE3]

went through same thing. changed to a tci flexplate, same symptoms and I shimed/measured etc etc couldn't get it right and didn't want to chew another flexplate up so I put the factory starter back in and cured. gotta pull the header to change it if gos bad but don't care.

[HWYSTR455]

Originally Posted by Old Man Taylor

What clearance did you measure on the tooth contact when you installed it?

This is where I was going to go too. If you look at the wear pattern, it wasn't making enough contact on the ring gear teeth.

And true, you will have to change the gear on the starter, which is supposed to be sacrificial anyway.

Once you get it all together again, work the pinion gear into the ring gear and check contact. If for some reason it's out of sync, clock the starter housing slightly, should help. And there should be several clockings that will work. Or maybe turn the pinion gear around. (R&R)

.

[Gator67]

Didn't measure clearance, but it looked about right when installed without shims. Added one shim at a time, and found it was quietest with just one, so that's what I went with. That's what I've always done with factory starters. The starter gear needed more contact, but was noisier without the shim, so there has to be something else going on.

I have a couple good factory starters lying around, but they're really difficult to stuff in there with the RA manifolds…but this might be easier than having to fix the flywheel again...

I have a RobbMc starter I'll try next…

[BB70]

Most starters are happy when you set the clearance at .030-.040. I extend the pinion out and use a paperclip to check the gear clearance.
John

[HWYSTR455]

Originally Posted by BB70

Most starters are happy when you set the clearance at .030-.040. I extend the pinion out and use a paperclip to check the gear clearance.
John

Exactly.

From the Meziere instructions:

Checking Ring Gear to Pinion Clearance/Fit:
This is vital to starter operation and starter/ ring gear life. Once the starter is mounted in position, check to make sure
that the starter pinion has adequate clearance from the ring gear. Our recommended distance is .100 +/-.04 (see Figure 1). A
shim (supplied) may be placed between the starter nose and the main housing if necessary. Next, engage the starter pinion by
jogging the starter or manually pulling the pinion gear out. Check to make sure there is some backlash clearance (.010”-.030”
recommended, see Figure 2) between the gears when engaged. Double check that the drive gear is not bottomed out into
flexplate ring gear, Also that there is not excessive clearance. A tight condition can be adjusted by adding shims. Use only
the supplied Meziere shims as they are specially shaped for maximum nose support. One shim will add about .007 to gear
backlash. If the lash is too loose already, it may be necessary to machine material off of the mounting surface of the starter
nose block.

[Blued and Painted]

I have in front of me 3 paper clips of different wire gauges. So i should use the one thats close to .030?

[HWYSTR455]

Originally Posted by Blued and Painted

I have in front of me 3 paper clips of different wire gauges. So i should use the one thats close to .030?

Yeah.

.

[Gator67]

No chance to change out the flywheel yet, but I fiddled with things today. The ring gear to pinion clearance with the Meziere starter is tight…I'll have to look for the shim that came with the starter…I suspect I tossed it out along with the box and instructions, which of course I didn't read.

I decided to install the RobbMc starter …again the pinion gear-flywheel clearance seemed a little tight but it was just within the specs in the RobbMc instructions. Given the condition of the flywheel I should have left well enough alone, but I couldn't help myself…guess I'll be sending this back to Robb for repair.

What's noteworthy is how much of a beating the RobbMc gear took…I only started the car three or four times, and then three more times with the spacer to get more clearance between the gear and flywheel. The gear on the Meziere looks almost perfect still. I guess if the Meziere gear was softer, it would have done less damage to the flywheel.

[mechanickeith]

Turbo & Electric here in Phx can fit it up for you. Get it back the next day.
602-253-6817 See Joe at the front counter

[HWYSTR455]

RTFM. It's a tough lesson sometimes!

All you need is the gear, no sense sending the whole starter back, call them and order the gear.

And as previously stated, the starter gear is supposed to be sacrificial. So it doesn't eat the ring gear. Well, most are.

.

[Gator67]

I ordered a ring gear from NAPA. Noticed that one side of the bottom (inside) edge is slightly beveled…should this face down on the flywheel or should it face out? Or does it not matter?

Decided to send the starter back RobbMc…just cost me shipping and the price of the pinion gear ($30). Also had the optional pinion support nose cone added (another $30). Seemed like a good idea, but as you can see from the photo, it will make measuring clearance with the ring gear a bit more challenging. Robb turned it around in under a week…impressive service.

[Blued and Painted]

bump

[gtofreek]

I did starting and charging systems for a living for 11 years. Changed and shimmed thousands of starters, on about any kind of car you can think of. One of the main reasons I WILL NOT use a mini starter in my car is because the drives in them were built for the ringgear tooth spacing of the Toyota or Nissan ringgear[the cars these starters were originally built for]. I bet if you compare the tooth spacing of your mini starter to the tooth spacing of the GM starter, you will find the tooth spacing is not exactly the same. So this causes the starter drive teeth to slightly rub on the next ringgear teeth coming into contact with the drive, putting the ringgear teeth in a slight bind with the starter drive teeth. Look at the picture in post #10, and visualize the starter drive teeth being spread out a little further, and you will see what I'm talking about. This is why your ringgear teeth are ground down evenly on both sides, into a point, almost down to the root of the teeth. You had plenty of tooth engagement[which is why it's worn down to the root], just the teeth spacing is not correct. I bet you find the mini starter drive has 10 teeth on it, while your GM starter will have 9.

Another reason I will not use them is because most of them do not come with a drive end support. This worked fine on little Toyota, and Nissan 4 cylinder, and 6 cylinder engines, but in big V-8's, especially with compression, the drive cocks when engaged, and wears out prematurely. I used to change out those drives fairly regularly on engines with them. The GM starter, when built correctly, will last many, many years, while the mini starters are getting replaced much more often. V-8's need the drive end support. As far as I'm concerned, it's mandatory.

[gtofreek]

After really looking close at your pic, I see two different things. If you look at the teeth in the center, to just right of center in the pic, they look like the drive gear is meshing down close to the root of the ringgear, where it should be. But, if you look at the teeth to the left of center, they look like the drive teeth are only engaging about half way. Now we are looking at the backside of the flywheel, so the engine rotation from this view will be counterclockwise. This means the drive gear will be placing it's load on the left side of the ringgear teeth as we are looking at it in this view. But the wear on the ringgear teeth to the left of center, show a lot of wear on the right side, where there should be no wear. So, in this case, you have a lot of wear on both sides of the teeth, which can only mean one thing in my mind. The tooth spacing on the drive gear, is too wide for the tooth spacing on the ringgear, thus eating up the ringgear.
Basically what I said in the above post, but a closer look at the pic just proved that to me.

[PontGuy]

That's interesting about the teeth spacing.

I have RobbMC starters in both my cars. The Lemans starter has been going strong for 6 years now. I've pulled the converter cover and all of the teeth look fine. The one in the TA is a relatively new install and I haven't looked at it yet since the initial installation. I don't know what drive gear Rob is using. But they spin the engines smoothly without any strange noises.

I got both with the nose support included for just the reason you mention. There has to be a lot of overhung load on the bearings without it and I didn't want to have problems especially with the big cube engines. But Rob's nose support does make getting a good tooth clearance measurement really tough so shimming is mostly by feel. For RobbMC I found that using the same shims used on the stock starter that was removed is very close to right though.

Unless you have EFI the cranking time it takes these days to get gas into the carb puts a lot of load on starters (and the gears) these days. Remember when you could tune an engine to crank with just a touch of the ignition switch?