dustinjshaw

Here is essentially the problems that I’ve been having with my truck and what I’ve done to fix it so far.

The truck is a ‘74 with a 350 4barrel – it appears to be the original engine.

The starter that was on the truck when I bought it died on me, and I replaced it with a AutoZone starter. After a month or so, the starter would make a grinding noise occasionally. It sounded to me like the gears would start to engage properly, stop engaging, not mesh, and grind against each other. After that, I tried two Corvette starters from AutoZone (to see if they would work better), and another truck starter. I ended up returning the AutoZone starter all-together and got a Napa starter with a lifetime warranty. I’ve been through at least 5 Napa starters so far (I’ve fractured the nose-cones on two of the starters, telling me that when it grinds, it’s pushing the end of the nose-cone away from the flywheel).

I’ve also replaced the flywheel, thinking that the teeth might be two worn out on the flywheel (it looked like it could have been the original). That worked for about 6 months, then when the temperature changed, the problem came back.

I replace the battery cables, but this didn’t do anything. I’ve also had to replace a bad battery, so it has a new battery on it.

I’ve tried shimming the starter up and down, and made sure that it is exactly where it is supposed to be. This will sometimes fix the problem for a month or so.

Just this last weekend, I replace the entire wiring harness – front to rear. I figured that even if it doesn’t kill the problem, it was a thirty year old wiring harness after all. The problem has already come back.

I think that if I can fix this starter problem, I will have not too many more major problems with this truck for a long time (I’ve already replaced the timing belt, water pump, etc.).
Any help would be appreciated. I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around what else could be causing the problem. All of the fixes that I’ve tried so far were based off of things that I had heard/read might help.

dustinjshaw

Well broke another nose-cone. At least I made it to Friday this time.

What might be of interest is that I noticed that when my starter grinds, my engine seems to kick backwards and then quit cranking. I would guess that this is what is breaking my nose-cones (as I've had someone tell me that this can break a nose cone), and it might be what is causing the grinding - maybe forcing the starter out of the flywheel teeth because of a kick back.

I'm going to double check my timing after I fix my starter, just to make sure.

Dustin