Hey everyone,

I have a 1990 RS with a 1985 Carbureted 350 in her. I have owned her since July and have started working on fixing her up. I am currently having problems with the flywheel/starter. When I bought the car she would make a lot of noise when I started her up. The starter woud engage but it seemed that it would not catch the teeth on on the flywheel. It got so bad that the engine wouldn't even crank. I replaced the starter and it seemed to fix the problem, until recently. I have only had the starter in for a few monts and it is beginning to do the same thing. It seems that after she has been running for a little while, basically allowed to warm up, and then shut off, I have a problem starting her up again. It seems that the teeth of the starter are not catching the teeth on the flywheel. The starter will spin and then catch really hard. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Oh and I've tried shimming it but that didn't fix the problem

 

If the the starter teeth are not engaging the flywheel, then remove all of the shims. It only needs to be shimmed if the starter and flywheel are to close together and it binds. Also, check your flywheel for missing teeth. Hope this helps.

 

I'll have to check to see if there are missing teeth on the flywheel. But I don't think there are. Also, I shimmed the starter that I replaced... there are no shims on the new starter.

 

yeah man,sounds like the flywheel or flexplate(depending on whether your car is man. or auto.)

 

Alright,

So i've been working on my Camaro for the past few days just cleaning her up and changing out some of the gaskets, I decided to take a look at my flywheel and starter to try and see what the deal is with this noise/issue when starting her up. I turned the flywheel all the way around to check the bolts on the torque converter and come to find out one of the three bolts is missing and the other two were loose. One of the two was not even finger tight. I tightened them up and check the teeth on the flywheel and none are missing, BUT i'm still having these problems. IS there any other suggestions on this one? Possibly something internal that is causing such a problem? It definitely doesn't sound good on my engine when i'm having this problem.

 

Look for a cracked flex plate. It may be cracked by the crankshaft flange, usually has rust near the crack. It should all make a noise when you put it in gear at an idle, might sound like clicking .

 

I'll have to look at that but it doesn't make any clicking noise when I put it into gear. There is not noise when the car is actually running... only when trying to start. The starter works but when i'm cranking the engine it seems that the starter is not "meshing" with flywheel....

 

I'd check the mounting pad on the engine block. This was happening to my 383, and I checked the pad, and low and behold one of the bolt holes had a crack through the middle of it that would open up when warm or hot and let the bolt loose a little. This was on the outer bolt hole. i went through way too many starters before i figured this out. I tried everything to fix this problem before I found the cause. But on the bright side i am now a whiz on starters. And can now just reach under the car and change one with out looking or getting my body underneath.

Oh and also get yourself a starter strap. It goes bolted on from the top bolt on the armature to the block of the engine. The armature has a stud sticking out of it for the strap. It makes a HUGE difference and saves wear and tear on the starter!!!! Its practically a must have, only some Chevy's had them from the factory. Or a good automotive electrical parts store will have them.

 

Hey thanks for the tips. I'll have to check that out. Hopefully this will work because I can't think of any other things that could be making such an issue. And I know what you mean about changing the starter. When I replaced mine it was an SOB just trying to get the new one in. I'll let you know how this next thing goes.

 

If the flexplate to converter bolts were loose, this probably warped the flexplate from what you are describing. The best way to fix the problem is to pull the trans down, take the flexplate off (use it as a frisbee from now on) and get a new one. Since the bolts were loose its a possibility the holes became egg-shaped from slamming against the torque converter bolts. Also when you replace the flexplate make you torque the crankshaft bolts to spec and use locktite on them (same for converter bolts). Make sure you get new converter bolts as the loose flexplate might have worn some threads off. Check the starter pinion too. Make sure its not missing the beveled part of the gear. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm really starting to believe that this is what the problem is. All I have been able to come up with is that the flywheel is probably warped and not allowing the teeth of both the flywheel and the starter to connect like they are supposed to depending on where the flywheel is sitting. None of the other things is causing me problems. I'm planning on rebuilding the engine in the next few months so replacing these things won't be an issue. I just thought that if I could fix the problem I could still drive her around for the next few months without tearing up my starter or anything else. But seeing that this is probably the problem. I'll just have to make sure that I keep the playtime with my toy to a minimum. I'll let you all know how the rebuild goes when I get her done. Thanks again for the help

 

Your original starter was not properly engaging, which can damage the teeth on the flexplate. Most likely your teeth are partially chewed away, and now that your "new" starter is less than new, it's having problems engaging the partially-there flexplate teeth.

More common than you might think, actually.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I was thinking that might have been a possibility as well. I've noticed that there is some wear on the flywheel teeth but it doesn't seem like there is enough wear on it to caused such a problem. I'm thinking that either way I'm going to just have to replace the flywheel, which I planned on doing when I rebuild my 350