Starter Problems on a 74 455

[Guest brh]

A buddy of mine has a 74 Riv with the 455 and he is going through starters. Last two starters had the housing cracked. Car starts no problem when cold, but when she is hot the starter drags. New- starter, cables, battery and alternator. When hot I had him hit the headlights and they dim quite a bit, which indicates quite a draw. The shimming has been checked and is supposed to be fine. This one has me stumped. Any thoughts?

[Dave@Moon]

Have you been able to check the contact between the starter gear and the ring gear? If they're misaligned, and especially if their alignment changes with heat, it could likely be an internal engine problem.

Having the starter drag and draw a lot of current only when hot could be a timing chain problem as well (Mopar big blocks are famous for this), but I don't believe that wouldn't account for the cracked housings.

[The Old Guy]

Check the timing!! If it is too far advanced, it will kick back on the starter and break it.

[NTX5467]

One question might be "how" it was determined that the shimming was correct? I recall seeing a service document that showed there should be something like .040" between the tip of the starter drive's teeth and the deepest part of the flywheel's ring gear teeth. Sometimes, shimming starters can be a pain, especially with a flywheel that had a wear pattern on it.

Could it also be a heat issue due to the proximity of an exhaust pipe? In that case, there are some heat shields for Chevy applications that might be of help. I would hope that there would not be enough dimensional changes between hot and cold engine temps to cause the starter drive/flywheel ring gear relationship to change THAT much and cause a problem.

Quality of rebuilt or reman starters can vary from brand to brand. I would hope that would not be an issue.

On the Chevrolet side of things, usually when a starter end housing gets broken, it's due to the starter bolts getting loose and letting the starter torque kick the starter against the loose mounting bolts. For that issue, there are also some starter braces that attach to one of the starter's through bolts and then attach to the engine block to keep it from moving around. In some cases (as in the diesel V-8s), the loose bolts can also break the cylinder block casting and render the block unuseable as a result.

Also be aware that there are special starter bolts and that they usually are not regular bolts (at least for Chevrolet applications). Usually, there is some knurling on the shank of the bolt--what good it does, I'm not sure, but if GM could use a regular and less expensive bolt, they'd be doing that.

One other thing to consider, did the end housing of the replacement starters exactly match that of the original that was pulled off? This is something that people usually don't think about, but GM used to have a multitude of different end housings for the same starter main housing (other than the long and short solenoid issues). The differences were how they interfaced and cleared the transmission bellhousing area for the different transmissions. In later years, they have become much more universal, but in the earlier years they were not nearly as "generic" as many people thought they were. Perhaps it was not that way with Buick V-8s, but it sure was with Chevrolets. One associate that used to own a private repair facility related that if he changed a Chevrolet starter, he always transferred the old end housing to the new starter as it was a "known situation" and would not cause any problems or need shimming. Of course, if the end housing bushing showed some wear, it was easy to replace them.

I've known of some of these starter issues that seemed to never go away once they started, or at least you never heard of what finally fixed things.

Just some thoughts,

NTX5467

[Guest imported_cadlights]

Check the solonoid, that will cause that problem.

If it is gouged it will hang up when hot. I carried a bottle of water with me when I had my 61 Le Sabre to pour on the starter till I figured it out.

Hope this helps.

[Guest brh]

Thanks for your thoughts. Timing, shimming and quality of the starter has crossed my mind, I saw the last one that went in and it looked pretty cheesy for a 455 Buick engine.

[BUICK RACER]

Here's a trick if you don't like the looks of the starters, get a 3/4 Chevy truck starter, preferraly GM=AC/Delco reman and change the nose piece, we did that on my 455 racecar and worked well, but now I have a hi-torque mini started on it, too much $$ for a street car probably!

[Guest brh]

What year starter? And does it look stock? This Riv has been done to stay original. I don't think $ will be an issue as he is going through these things every couple of months. He went through 3 this summer alone!

[NTX5467]

What Roberta has mentioned is one scenario that might be of benefit.

Basically, there are two ACDelco starter units from which many applications have resulted. The basic housing comes in two lengths, which is obvious by the length of the spacer at the end of the solenoid. The "HD" version has a longer basic black case unit and also had to have a longer spacer at the end of the solenoid for things to work correctly. Some of the later years might have a case that gets slightly smaller in outside diameter as it progresses away from the end housing, instead of it being the same diameter all of its length (possibly a way to save a pound in vehicle weight in the later years?).

Onto the basic starter unit, whether "std" or "HD", the various end housings are assembled that make those same base units in to starter assemblies fit many GM engines and also non-GM OEM applications too.

I suspect that if you determine which base housing/case length you need and if it's constant diameter or had the two outside diameter sections of the same case, the rest should be easy. Cosmetics will not vary greatly in most situations. In fact, as most of the OEM production units had a 7 digit Delco/GM number on them, you can chase some of those if you desire (correct stamp number and correct production date codes too) or its necessary for the type of judged show events and such.

On the inside, the number of field coils will usually be related to the case length as will the armature. Once you get past those length-related differences, everything else should be pretty much common (part wise).

If, per chance, you do find a starter on a junk motor in a salvage yard for the application you have, get the starter and the flywheel/flexplate and any shims that might be in it--especially if they look like they are all original parts for the engine. That might generate a complete "matched set" of end housing, flywheel, and basic starter unit from which the whole problem might be fixed. This idea might work ONLY if it all looks like it came from the factory with nothing being altered over the years.

There were many applications where Chevrolet used the longer case "HD" starter back in the 1960s-1980s. Unfortunately, it's a look and see issue as no parts book will probably mention "HD" or standard, unless it's the 1979-1986 Chevy pickup parts book--back then, if you bought a HD battery on a new pickup, you automatically got the HD starter to go with it, so a starter part listing with the note of "w/HD Battery" might be significant if it's for a non-454 engine (which would have had the larger starter anyway). What it boils down to is that the price can vary somewhat between the various GM/Chevrolet applications so shopping for application AND price (due to some applications being more popular than others or higher sales volume or whatever) might be advisable, yet somewhat time consuming and trying for the parts person you might be dealing with. Police car applications might be another area to look for along with the light duty trucks also. Remember, we're trying to find a higher torque starter for a Chevrolet application and then that case will be put with a Buick application end housing for the upgraded crossbreed starter.

Hope this might help,

NTX5467

[Guest brh]

Thanks again for your input, I will copy this and give it to my friend. Any and all info is much appreciated as this problem is a persistant one.

[Fred Giessler]

Could it be that the carburetor is flooding over into the cylinders after shut off?

This could cause a hydraulic issue between the piston and the cylinder head ?

Excess strain on the starter causing it to break ?