Not sure how to sum it up in one sentence so sorry for a confusing title.

My problem is that my 'old' starter was having difficulties starting, basically it wasn't ejecting and striking the flywheel at all, it just spun in place, untill it eventually engaged and started the beast. Well after someone ran into my from the front (head on), the problem remained the same (that's important for what I'm getting at). I drove it in and out of our shop everynight for 2 weeks, starting it via the starter and having the same problem still. I eventually drove it onto a trailer, and off the trailer to put it next to my home so I can repair the collision damage. So the car sat for a month with me working on it, and then came time to drive it down the road to the body shop. But the starter wouldn't even turn, I've been meaning to replace it anyway. So to Advance Auto I do, purchase a refurb. starter, bolt her up, and the starter will hit the flywheel, turn the motor over a few turns and then not turn it, almost sound like the starter is barely missing it, or going to far. Keeping the key held forward it'll eventually grab the flywheel, do the same few turns, and then start clipping it.

I tried every combination of shims imaginable, and then I brought what I thought to be a defect back to advanced, got another refurb, and the exact same problem exists. At work (pepboys) all my fellow mechanics/techs all say flywheel could be warped, I doubt this. As for 1, the old starter still started it untill it sat. And for 2, I drove it around the parking lot everynight after the wreck and experienced no driveability problems.

Any suggestions would be awesome, as I'm at a loss. Saturday I'll mess with it somemore, before bringing it back to advance auto and getting another.

 

Have you tried no shims at all? Bolt on the starter without any shims if you havent already done that and see what happens. If you done that already, there is probably something wrong with the flywheel.

 

Stock trans? Ever think you might be down some teeth on the flywheel?

Take the starter off, get a good flash light and have someone turn the motor over from the front with a breaker bar and make sure you gotz all ur teefs

 

Well, it's been a long time but man has life been busy. Finally got around to it and I've removed the trans, clutch and what not. The flywheel is perfect. No teeth missing, no warpage, even finish with no wears on the face. I've still got the same problem though. I can now even watch the started engage the flywheel, it barely makes it into the flywheel teeth (with no shims), or it'll sometimes get stuck in the teeth but most oftenly seems to be grazing it. I've tried with all sorts of shim combinations again and again and really get nothing. I know after almost 2 inches of shims the starter seems too low, but besides that nothing else changes.

I am at a complete loss now. The car started great with a failing starter and now wont be engaged. Constantly wish I had the original starter so I could just rebuild it.
--Also, i've sourced starters from every auto parts store and they're all the same in everyway.

 

How many teeth do you have on that flywheel? I'm not familiar with the manual flywheels, but there are different amounts of teeth on the automatic flexplates (153, or 168 tooth if memory serves). If the available flywheels also had different tooth counts, it's quite possible you have a mismatched starter. No guarantees on that though, as I mentioned, manual flywheels aren't my specialty. Hope that helps.

 

Flywheel has 153 teeth, as it should. I will also mention that i've looked at other starters from elsewhere, had them order a few... and they all looked exactly the same. My next step I guess will be to get a dealer starter. And see what I can do there. (The other starters that were ordered I only compared them to the advanced auto ones, whipped out the tape measurer and everything)

 

yea, get a delco starter

 

I tried some brands and types of starters, turned out that the remanufactured delco/remy was the best one (tried hitatchi type 3 types) and the delco was the best one. So get a new delco/remy one and that will fix the problem. I had similar problems with the hitatchi one etc, got bored of dealing with it all the time, bought an delco/remy one and it solved all my problems with the no start thing... (now its just that damn no start on heat, need to cool of for 10mins on really hot days, working on that problem tou, its getting better and better...)

If you have a pretty stock car/engine there is no need for a stronger starter.

 

heat wrap the starter

 

If you where talking to me I already did that, see my "problem thread" :
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...turn-when.html

Sorry for kinda stealing this thread but..