I have an Olds 455 in my '79 Cutlass. Got the motor rebuilt with new cam. Motor fired right up once I got distributor correct (was one tooth off) and was able to break in cam and motor was fine. I was like ok lets get this thing on the road. Well I had to still switch out my old gas tank (i used a 5 gallon jug with a hose to feed the fuel pump during break in). So I got a new goodmark gas tank and got it all installed and then went to start car. All of a sudden I am getting this nasty grinding noise out of this starter, like the car is running already when it tries to start. I moved the distributor some thinking it was too advanced and get the same result. Keep in mind car started fine during break in and after I ran it a couple times and did not have this problem. One thing I did notice was that sometimes I would start the car and I would get a click like the starter would engage but not spinning motor. Sometimes I would have to do this a couple times and the motor would then start. Since this has happened I tried a 1/16" shim on the starter, same result and then added (2) 1/32" shims for a total of 1/8" and get the same result. Just grinding. I have taken a screwdriver and noticed I have about 1/16" of play in the starter gear and if I take the screwdriver and pull the gear out into the flywheel(like if it were starting) it seems like it will line up okay. But I know if I try to start this again it is going to grind. I had this motor on my engine test stand prior to the cam swap and all and the starter turned this motor over okay. This motor had 112k on it when pulled. Starter had no shims on it when I took it off to rebuild motor.
Any ideas as to the issue? Like I said, this started out good, but has got worse overtime and now even with 1/8" of shims still grinding like a mudda fugga.
Any ideas as to the issue? Like I said, this started out good, but has got worse overtime and now even with 1/8" of shims still grinding like a mudda fugga.