[Terry]

I was wondering if anyone has ever had the following problem and what my have caused it. I went to start my car yesterday and after cranking it over and over I had what appered to be a backfire then the starter made a very bad sound. I crawled under the car and I could see the gear on the starter was stuck in the engage mode. I pushed it back with a screwdriver and tried again. Same terrible noise. Upon further inspection I found the housing had split. I replaced the starter and it appears to be OK. I believe the battery got too low and it tried to fire causing a severe counter rotation of the engine. Do you think this could happen? Any comments or suggestions would be appriciated.

Thanks,
Terry

 

[Wally]

Yep, been there done that. I had a starter almost blow completely off a 454. What I found was a bad distributor, the advance was locked and when the motor was hot it was to much for the starter. It was even uglier, kept running and all I could do was cut the cable.

I switched it to the cast iron nose heavy duty starter, fixed the junk distributor, and put the rear brace back on. No more problems.

 

[Gary S]

Anytime an engine fires early enough to attempt to turn the engine backward on startup, I first check the timing. If you are advanced too far, this will be the result. If your timing is correct, take a good look at your distributer cap. Is there any carbon tracking in it? Is there any moisture in it? Did you just pressure wash the engine? If in doubt,I replace the cap, retard the timing and try again with a new starter.

 

[Steve S]

Yup me too! Doesn't take much of a backfire to crack an aluminum housing. Just hope it didn't take out your flexplate. The heavy duty starter is the way to go. You can even get steel nose starters if you continue to have a problem.

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Steve Strasemeier (70SS)