i have an 85 trans am with a 305 tpi. the old engine block had either a bad cam or burnt valves or both so i bought a new block and swapped everything over. i hooked everything back up to how it should be. the engine turns over but won't start. i know the battery is weak and so i charger it up and they hooled it up to a running vehicle with jumper cables but still nothing. the starter starts to click randomly while rolling it over. what could i have hooked up wrong or what might be wrong?

 

Are you sill having issues? I'm assuming that you swapped starters as well... did you check it's alignment, and is it shimmed properly?

 

yes i'm still having problems. i put the old starter on b/c it was practically brand new. i replaced it when i bought the car b/c the one on it was bad. there weren't any shimms when i took the bad one one off to replace it. should they be one? if so is that something i can just get at a local automotive shop?

 

Well lets confirm that it is in fact the starter, for starters. When you try to fire it up, does the engine turn over? If it does, is it a slow turn over, or does it turn over fine, but simply not catch? Or, is there a constant "ticking" noise prevalent, even with a fully charged battery?

 

the engine turns over but it is on the slow side. the engine will roll over a couple of times with a freshly charged batt but after a couple times or rolling over it'll tick right before the engine starts to roll over. it could be that that the starter is slipping and not gripping like it should but i don't know.

 

I'm honestly thinking the opposite. It sounds like it's jammed up (but not entirely). It's resisting, causing the battery to lose it's power much quicker. You might want to get the car up on a lift, jack-stands or ramps, and have someone monitor the positioning of the starter when it tries to engage the flywheel.

Shims are not uncommon at all. I honestly believe that you're going to need them in this particular situation. What year is your replacement engine block, anyways?

 

i bought the block from an auto store. it was a remanufactured block.