General Motors starters

From Crankshaft Coalition Wiki

General Motors was the 1st manufacturer to use a electric starter in 1912 by Charles F Kettering @ Dayton Engineering laboratories its 1st application was used on Cadillacs.

This was a great improvement over the "Hand Crank" which was notorious for its unpredictable kick backs, many people were injured even killed by these .

The "Electric Self Starter was a big selling point in the popularity of Automobiling making it accessible to men & women of any size & strength.

There are Industrial, Marine & other uses.

Jump ahead almost a century & I am here to address a lot of problems encountered with the GM Starter.

GM Starters are used in many different applications most commonly the Domestic car lines Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile & Pontiac.

From this point on until said otherwise I will be using Stock Chevrolet Rear Wheel Drive {Standard rotation }as my platform.

1. 1

We all have heard @ one time or another that cringing make you want to scream poorly adjusted Chevy starter .

I am here to clear up some of these problems.some have gone to extreme lengths to deal with this grinding blocks & starters. custom bolts & shims & bracket & such.

I recently discovered that there are 2 different sets of bolts used for Chevy starters SAE & METRIC A . SAE {Standard} 3/8~16 Dia . B . Metric 10 mm These bolts are Knurled which is very important to holding the nose cone in place. Both bolts & starter cones can wear out over time from excessive use & or mis matched parts. {SAE bolts in a Metric Nose Cone} As of 2008 Car Quest Stock Numbers are

3510S {SAE}
3510MS {METRIC}

1. 2 The Fly Wheel , Ring Gear or Flex Plate.

! Rob's Rule of thumb When Replacing Flywheel replace starter!

I use the term Fly Wheel . On a Standard or Manual transmission some "Ring Gears can be heated ,Removed & flipped or replaced. Every Automatic Transmission I have ever seen it was NOT possible to repair the "Ring Gear" using the above method mos repairs involve replacement The Small Block Uses 2 different Teeth numbers 153 & 168 the 168 being the most popular. Flywheels with two different diameters are used on Chevrolet small-block V~8, big-block V~8, and V~6/90-degree engines.

Large flywheels are 14" in diameter, and have 168 teeth on the starter ring gear.

Starter noses used with large diameter flywheels have two offset bolt holes.

Small diameter flywheels are 12-3/4" in diameter, and have starter ring gears with 153 teeth.

Starters for small flywheels have two bolt holes which are paralleled to the back of the block.

The difference in flywheel diameters requires two different starter housings.

This nose is the part of the starter that moves the starter motor in closer to the flywheel on the 153 tooth and farther out away from the flywheel on the 168 tooth wheels.

Most Chevrolet blocks are drilled for both types of starters. If you are changing the diameter of your flywheel, you can convert your present starter to fit the new flywheel by installing the appropriate starter nose .

The Knurled starter bolts are a must. The knurled part holds the starter in place it is actually a bit wider to keep the starter from shifting.

Keep in mind the difference of the Metric & SAE bolt Dia. In some rare truck applications the starter nose uses all three bolt holes.

~!Robs Tips !~painting ring gear will show how the gears are meshing. {Personal experience} I had a brand new starter with a weak Bendix that would rattle lightly I would not have spotted the problem if I had not painted the ring gear.

I also will add that on the 168 tooth flywheel and starter, the the nose cone of the starter is different between and auto trans and a manual trans on many applications.

An AT trans starter (168 tooth) will not fit into '621' bell housing.{Thanks Bryan 59}

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~!Rob's Rule of thumb. If your starter is working fine with out shims hold onto your core until you are absolutely sure the replacement is working. Once you turn in the core its gone!~'''

Adjustment. When using shims you need to have 1/8" clearance, a drill bit or Allen wrench works well for this. A noisy starter is because the gears are too close the use of shims reduced the noise by increasing the distance between the gears.

1. 4

Electrical. Rob's tips

I call this the Grounding triangle. Making sure there is a good heavy wire going from the:

~Battery to the Block
~Battery to the Frame
~from the Frame to the Block

With this you are almost guaranteed a good ground if one of the others fail.

Keep in mind that the Block is sitting on rubber mounts.

Some people will bolt the "Battery to Block " right to the starter bolt. --Slowride66 13:35, 21 October 2008 (PDT)