[Cvarney]

As I was putting an AAW classic update I went ahead picked up a RobbMc starter. Now when I first put the starter in I used the same shim that came from my old one and from a sound perspective had proper engagement. No grinding or kickback. So fast forward a bit and doing some testing of it making sure the engine starts and setting the timing and what not the battery wire at the starter was against the header and it burnt through and then I had smoking terminals. I picked up new cables from AAW and fixed a couple burnt spots in the other two wires by cutting the burnt spots there and replacing the terminal. I reclocked the solenoid to get the wires away from the header and reinstalled the starter putting the shim that had previously worked back in. And it made an awful sound. I'm thinking the bendix was kicking back cause it had a second or two of proper starter sound then went to the grind. I took the shim back out and same thing.

My biggest question is why would this change all of a sudden just by clocking the solenoid. I don't see how that would change the relation of the bendix to the ring gear. And second if there a method to shimming the starter or is it just trial and error?

[Geoff]

There might be some slop in the starter mounting holes. Maybe try loosening the two bolts & moving the starter a little, away from the ring gear.

[Blued and Painted]

Sounds like the battery is low. Put it on trickle charge for 3 hours.

disconnect the armature wire. Energize the solenoid and starter drive only. Then with feeler gauge or wire gauge drill bit, check the clearance between flywheel teeth and starter drive teeth. Check at 3 spots around the flywheel and get the average.
If i recall it should be .025 to .030 ..

[Cvarney]

Originally Posted by Blued and Painted

Sounds like the battery is low. Put it on trickle charge for 3 hours.

disconnect the armature wire. Energize the solenoid and starter drive only. Then with feeler gauge or wire gauge drill bit, check the clearance between flywheel teeth and starter drive teeth. Check at 3 spots around the flywheel and get the average.
If i recall it should be .025 to .030 ..

Naw battery was good. I pulled it back out the next day and I'd broken all the teeth on the bendix. I still cannot think of any reason clocking the solenoid would effect the backlash of the starter pinion. So my only guess to what happened was it was wrong before but maybe with the crappy smaller battery cables I had on wouldn't give it enough torque to really do much and it just "kind of" worked. Then when I put the this 1gauge cable on it had enough power to it and it finally broke the teeth of the bendix gear. Got a new one ordered so in a couple days hopefully I'll get this squared away.