I bought a ministarter for the 350 motor awhile back. I had a local shop put it on at the time since I wasn't comfortable with installing lots of things. Since then I've been doing almost all my own work. Mostly, due to crappy work done by other people.

Anyways, I'm in the process of building a 383 with long tubes and I need the ministarter. When I removed it I found 3 shims in the 350 motor and the gear has some wear on the very end. The teeth are chewed up (missing) about 1/8" to 1/16" in length. There is no apparent damage any deeper. Can I use a small dremel and deburr the very end of the gear where the teeth are missing to reuse it on the new flexplate?

I'd like to reuse this starter if possible because it has very little use on it. Not to mention a new one is ~$180.

Here's a picture of the gear. Sorry about the quality, but as you can see there is very little wear, except for the very end of the teeth.



Also I just wanted to confirm these were the right specs for installing a starter: .060" to .140" gap between the starter drive and plate retracted and .025" to .055" gap in the valley of the drive gear teeth when extended to the plate?

 

UPDATED (for future searchers)

I deburr'd the gear. I installed it and had only 0.054" clearance between the gear and flexplate. I went ahead and ordered an internal shim kit to fix that. This was one area I received mix answers on. Lots of people told me there are not any shim kits to adjust a starter position horizontally (front to back). So, the starter must be on the wrong application. I knew it was for the right application since I bought and had it installed on my stock 350. Upon further review I found this problem seems to happen from time to time with ministarters.

I bought this starter out of Summit, but I order'd JEG'S shim kit due to 2 day shipping for $12. Internal Shim Kit (Hitachi Depth Shim Kit) PN 555-10039, For adjusting starter to ring gear depth



The picture from JEG'S Online is wrong. It shows some blue spacers.

I had to take the starter apart. It was a lot easier than I expected. I didn't even have to press the gear out of the aluminum block with a little effort it popped out with just my hands.

The ring spacer goes between the mounting block and the bearing on the gear.



The other spacer goes between the starter motor and the mounting block.

After bolting it all back up I checked my gear to flexplate ring clearance. It checked at 0.110" so that's a lot nicer now.

I also order'd the standard Jeg's Shim kit and bolts. Turned out the bolts were to big in diameter to fit into the mounting block and I didn't need any of the additional shims.

I mounted the starter flush and checked clearance with a paperclip. I have 0.045" in the valley.