I want to ask a question of the forum. I have a street rod with a sbc motor. I recently went to York for the street rod nationals. It was hot, while coming back I noticed the starter getting tired so I ordered another from summit. This starter has a weird sound when turning the motor over. After a while It would bring the battery down. It's as if it's struggling to do the job. Then the battery is drained. It's new what could be wrong?
New parts ain't always good parts!! Sounds like you need to shim it ifthe the starter is good. Not thick enough shim will make sounds and over load the starter.
Like John said above new parts aren't always good parts.I just went through the same thing with a Summit starter and ended up replacing it with a Higher torque job.Summits return policy can't be beat so that shouldn't be an issue if it comes to that.Did also have to add a small shim so that may be worth looking at first to make sure your clearances are correct.
Is it a OEM or remanufactured OEM? If it is, there were 2 different stator/armature combinations. Low compression motors got the low torque unit. Higher compression got the high torque unit. Easy to tell the difference. At the opposite end of the starter from the bendix, there is a step in the case. High torque starters have the tab (coming from the windings) that connects to the solenoid outside of the step, or farther away from the bendix. Low torque are inside the step. I would never use a low torque starter. See which one you have. If it's aftermarket, can't help ya' My 2 cents, Dan
Make sure you have a decent gauge power cable that can deal with the current load. Had a similar issue with my BBF and a heavier cable solved the issue. The heat and current compounded the issue until resolved.
I have had name brand top quality starters give me trouble right out of the box. NEW parts are not what they use to be. I had one that did that whole battery drain thing just like you described. I would replace it. See if you can get a new one under a warranty.
one thing to diff look at is heat.if it works good cold but not hot, think about adding a ford starter solonoid in line and elimnate the gm solonid. it works! also a gm 4.3v6 starter is a high torque, and it will crank a stock 350 easily. ask me how i know. if you have high compression, go with high torque starter, otherwise try the ford solonoid, google it, or do a search on here. easy to wire up.
One thing I don't get is that if a guy has a stock style starter on his rod and it gets a bit tired but isn't burned up why doesn't he just freshen it up with bushings and brushes and go again? That's ten bucks and less than an hour's time for most folks. Probably the most consistently repetitive "I've got trouble with my car" themed threads involve the use of an aftermarket gear reduction starter on SBC's so that should tell folks something about them. It doesn't seem that brand or vender makes much difference either.
Send it back to Summit and go to NAPA.... I live 20 min from Summit. Great car shows, great return policy.... I don't buy OEM from them. I try to buy after market from Kennys or engine builders... Prices are high. Quality is dropped in the recent years.... The cost of doing business in a specialty market during a recession that isn't happening. Hey, but they have great car shows !
I ventured into the unknown. I went and took my original starter apart and found that the starter and armature had hot spots on them I took some emery cloth and cleaned them like I do my generator. Then I cleaned the brushes. I put the starter back on this morning and the car starts right up (60 times) so I know there is nothing wrong. I think you guy's are right the new starter needed shims so it was binding and putting undue current loss on the battery. The original starter did not need shims so it work great. The reason I pulled the original starter was it clicked 4 or 5 times before it started the car. When I changed the started I also replaced some wire that was at the cut off switch. I think this and the hot spot on the started saved my fix. Thanks all!
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