I have my 65 GMC Truck in the local High school auto shop. they are using it as a project in cl***. They removed the dead 305 V6 and putting in a 60's Chevrolet 283 built to a 327. It was missing the bell-housing fly wheel and clutch equipment. I picked up all of that stuff from someone local on Craigslist. I ***umed everything was the same. It all bolted up fine but now I am having the following issue with sourcing a starter. The starter I bought after they said they needed one and all others I have been looking through lately are drivers side mounted. The shop teacher said I need the following which is P***enger side mounted. Can someone help me by letting me know what year and type I am looking for. I cannot for the life of me find this starter and not knowing what to ask for doesn't help much. The one I need is a p***enger side with parallel bolt pattern (straight across and parallel with bell housing parting line). Thanks guys for your time and help.
Common starter for any chevy small block or inline 6 with the small 153 tooth flexplate or flywheel, try one from any 70s chevy pickup with the 250 6 cylinder engine. Also used on 68-74 chevy 307s but will have the aluminum nose which may not fit the bellhousing you have, but cant tell without pictures. Inline starter bolt holes are for the 12" 153 tooth flexplate or flywheel, staggered bolts are for the 14" 168 tooth units. I have never seen or heard of a drivers side mounted chevy SB starter.
Thanks I will check it out. I told the Shop teacher I have never seen a driver side mount Chevy Starter. He said there were a couple that were referred to as Pontiac Starters. Everything I have been searching through shows 3 bolt mounts. It sounds like the description I am relaying from the teacher that it is a 2 bolt pattern. I am running up to the school because I need a photo and see for myself the mounting holes. This makes no sense to me. I had a 6 cyl in my 64 chevy truck and used everything even the starter and dropped a 283 into. I had zero problems. I cannot imagine what the issue is in this situation.
I just got back from the shop at the High School and guess what. he is correct. I have attached a picture of how it needs to mount. The mount is correct on the starter I got for it, but it happens that the one I bought is oriented to be a drivers side mount for some Pontiac/GM models. Ignore the 3 mounting holes, (Meant for the 6cyl application.), in the bell housing and look at the Blue area. There are two bolt holes. The mount for this particular starter are vertical not horizontal. You push the bolts in from the bottom of the starter up to the actual block of the engine. I suppose the term never say never applies here. The starter I bought for the engine is referred to as a Pontiac Starter and the application was on the Drivers side. Naturally this is not Chevy but it is a GM product or at least when Pontiac existed.
I looks like an early 265-283 setup,except the hole for the starter snout doesnt appear to be deep enough.If thats the case and you dont want to change everything out ,cutting a hole in the housing would be a way around the problem.
Thanks, That will save me a headache when I get the correct starter. If it doesn't fit after this I will tell them to drill out a hole large enough for it to fit snug through the housing.
It may be the GMC part that is throwing him off because he is thinking GMC rather than thinking Chevrolet. As the guys said it all depends on which flywheel you have in the truck. If it has the smaller 153 tooth flywheel it takes the starter with the straight across bolt pattern if it has the large 168 tooth flywheel it takes the one with the offset bolt pattern. If you sourced the pieces together it shouldn't be a problem but if you picked them up from different sources they may not match up. One other thing, if it has the cast iron bellhousing that goes with a 168 tooth flywheel and has the bolt holes for the starter to bolt to the bellhousing you may have to trim part of the bellhousing off to clear a starter that bolts to the block. That used to be a pretty common modification when guy put later engines in the trucks with cast iron bellhousings and wanted to run the block mounted starters. Yep. it does have the cast iron bellhousing that uses the starter that bolts to the bellhousing which would work great with that flywheel but it appears that there may be two bolts broken off in the bellhousing.
Looks like you are mixing and matching parts there. That is a truck bellhousing that has the starter bolt holes, not the normal p***enger car piece. I have one of those starters here, just removed it last week from my 1969 dump truck. Get a starter for a 1969 C30 truck with the 350 engine, should have the correct nose and 3 bolt flange to mount it to the bellhousing. If that works you can ignore the starter bolt holes in the block. Otherwise I would lose that bellhousing and get the correct p***enger car piece for the flywheel size you have. Also keep in mind the round opening for the trans is larger on a truck bell so the p***enger trans will not register in the hole, it will be held in place only by the 4 mounting bolts and not be supported by the bellhousing. It is hard to tell by that picture but is the flexplate hitting the bellhousing? This is a 168 tooth bellhousing for p***enger cars on the right, 153 on the left. front view of a p***enger car bell
SO the GMC 305 is a v6 then as well? I have never seen this.... I am confused, since I thought reading it said 283 built to 327? Never mind....
Are you using that bellhousing just because of the side mounts or what? Get the right bellhousing and the so called shop teacher should be able to fab a crossmember for the ****** mount. Telling a bunch of kids in shop cl*** to cut a hole in a bellhousing isn"t a very good idea. Trash,dirt etc getting to the clutch and pressure plate. If its a cl*** at least teach them right,not to rig **** up just so it will work.
You can use the six starter with a V8,I pulled a 250 from a 67 C20 and bolted up a 350 to the original six bellhousing using the 250 flywheel,starter and clutch parts.
You need to get a Chevy truck bellhousing that has the ears on it to mount to the frame. It will be cast iron and takes the big flywheel. Then you use the truck starter that mounts to the 3 hole pattern on the bellhousing. Bob
Gents, if you read all of his post you would know that he is putting the SBC in a GMC pickup that had a 305 V6 in it. It's pretty well standard to use that particular bellhousing in that application so that he can use the bellhousing mounts and it doesn't make a difference if he doesn't use the bellhousing mounts. Mookiex4 that bellhousing will work with the starter that bolts to the block that is for a 168 tooth flywheel but as I said previously you will most likely have to cut a bit of the area that the bottom bolt for the bolt to the bellhousing starter bolts on off to clear the bolt to the block starter. As I said before that was common practice about 25 years ago when guys swapped later engines in those trucks and wanted to keep the later bolt to the block starter. If you have any other questions on it PM me and I'll answer them that way or pm you back my cell number.
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