i have been fighting with this starter for 3 days off and on now, and about the only thing it is starting is my temper! my starter is cranking, but really really slow. kinda like the starter gear and flywheel are binding up. i have tried every combination out of 3 packs of shims, and still cant seem to get any better. it is cranking like there is 48lbs of **** inside each cylinder. when i have the positive multimeter lead on the battery post on the solenoid and the negative lead on a solid ground (motor mount) i get a reading of 14.3 to 14.6 volts and when the ignition is keyed it drops to 3.6 while cranking. so i dont think power is my issue.......? this is the first car i have wired, as far as the diagrams go, i dont see any trouble. it is doing this whether i use the ignition key, or just jump the starter posts. any freaking ideas???
Take your battery in for a load test. That seems awfully low under a load. Just because it has 14 volts static doesn't mean it's good. Pull the valve covers and make sure the valves are doing their dance. A broken chain or cam gear wil make for really hard turning.
It seems like battery on the face of it,unless,,,,,are the cables fresh and the - grounde to the engine block? Not the water pump,exhaust or intake? Is the starter fresh?
starter is new, cables are new, water pump, is new. i have tried about 4 batteries......i'm gonna go pull a valve cover and see if things are moving.....gonna cross my fingers on that one. thanks for the answers so far guys, i really appreciate it
pull your plugs and try starting it, it should turn alot easier. if not then its something in the starter and flywheel department. also check to make shure the valves aren't contacting the pistons.
this past weekend the drive end blew off my chevy 6 starter, when i took it apart i discovered that one set of the brushes had the spring broken and they werent even touching the armature and was`nt been for a long time. i replaced the snout and fixed the spring and now it rolls over like twice as fast as it ever did. might be a long shot but you never kno, check to see if your brushes are working properly.
ok, i pulled the plugs, and valve covers. valves are moving perfectly as they should, and the engine turns over way better. still could use a small shim, but there is a huge marked difference with the plugs out. so in conclusion, what the heck does this mean? the motor hasnt been ran in about 6 months, maybe it got gunked up? i havent pulled the heads, it came from a trusted HAMB source and i have no reason to doubt this guys word. if he says it's good, it's good.
Make absolutely certain that the tooth count on your starter is in sync with the tooth count on your flywheel/flexplate. A mismatch can cause the symptoms you describe, and the worst case scenario is having the starter bind and break the mounting boss off the block.
you know, i was thinking that about the mismatched teeth. it is a 307, maybe the parts store guy..gave me a starter for a 350? they should be the same tooth count, everything else is the same. i'll check that out tomorrow. i do not need to break the boss off of the block, thats for sure! i can see there is already some wear on the starter gear. are there differences in a 307 and a 350 flywheel? maybe a dumb question, but i really dont know. thanks again for all the info!
You tried measuring the voltage at the starter hot terminal and it read 3 volts while cranking. So now try measuring the voltage at the battery's positive post while cranking again. If it's a lot higher than 3 volts, then that means you have a huge voltage drop in the battery cable (either the plus and minus cables, or both, or at their connection(s) ) If there is a lot of resistance in one of the battery cables, or if your ground strap is missing or loose, then that resistance causes a voltage drop under load. The higher the load, the more the voltage drop will be. If the voltage at the battery drops down close to the same 3 volts though, then it could be the battery or that there's just too much load on the starter. Is it possible it's a very high compression engine with like 12:1 pop up pistons, and you just have a half *** starter motor that can't hack it? What gauge are the battery cables? The ground connection between the battery and engine block is just as important as the hot connection to the starter. I've seen some cheap battery cables where the cables look okay, but the wire starts to rot inside the lug because they used some sort of acid flux or something, so they get a lousy connection inside the lug. After you crank over the engine a few times, use your finger tips to check for "hot spots" on the cables -- especially near the lugs or at the battery post. A weak ****py connection will show up as a hot spot. Sometimes very hot. If the whole cable gets hot, it's either way undersized or the starter is under a severe load. As far as I know, there are two sizes of flexplates for small Chevys. I think they're 168 tooth and 153 tooth. The 168 tooth flexplate and the matching starter will give you more leverage to turn the engine over, but I think the 305s might have come with the 153 tooth flexplates. It's a longshot, but I wonder if it's possible something in the transmission is screwed up and it's putting a drag on the engine. If it's an automatic, you could rule it out by unbolting the three bolts that hold the flexplate to the torque converter and sliding the torque converter back a little bit away from the flexplate. Maybe you could drain the oil and see if a pile of sludge comes out. Maybe it got sludged up sitting around too long or it collected moisture inside the crankcase or something. Put in some fresh lower viscosity oil maybe. Good luck. Hope you figure it out.
How does the engine turn over by hand. Turn off the ignition and use a flywheel tool to roll the engine.. If it rolls freely with the sparkplugs removed, nothing inside the engine or transmission is binding.. As others have stated, check the cables and ground straps thoroughly.. Be sure the surface on the block and starter where they mate, is s****ped clean.
I always go overboard on the wiring. I use a remote starter soleniod, and lots of grounds!! I use the braided type of grounds on both sides of the block. My guess is it's wiring related.
If it's not your battery, check the grounds. Is the battery ground cable going directly to the engine block? If you ground to the frame, make certain the ground strap from the engine to the frame is a very good one. I have seen some small engine-to-frame ground wires get a super high resistance simply from being reinstalled after a paint job, or re-using an old engine ground wire. Why the car makers used small cables for the engine ground, I don't know. I have seen one or two smoke a bit on hard to start cars. If it's a rear mounted battery, make sure your power cable is a lot larger than you think it needs to be.
Maybe the engine is totally dry of oil. Try pulling the dist., and spinning the oil pump with a drill untill the oil pressure lamp goes out for a while.
Go buy another starter and try it... I fought with a similar problem just last week... mine was making a terrible grinding sound, played around with a dozen different combos of shims, nothing worked... out of desparation, I went to the local auto parts store and bought a new remanufactured starter, figuring there's no way that could fix anything, but was out of things to try... bolted it up, no shims at all, fired right up smooth as silk on the first try and has been fine ever since. No idea what happened with the old one, but I know i coulda screwed with it for 3 more days and never woulda got it fixed. Try a different starter, you may be surprised!
I had a problem like this with a reman stock starter. Bought a Summit brand mini starter. Workes like a charm, and I will use the same starter on my new motor. It woks with either the straight across of offset bolt pattern and has a bunch more power than my stock unit did.
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