The starter drive was spinning out on my 1954 Chev with original 235 and manual transmission. I put a new ring gear on and had starter completely rebuilt at a very reputable starter rebuilder. Drive is chewing up new ring gear (after about 6-8 starts) and sounds horrible. Starter has been off and on several times and shop has rechecked rebuild twice. Ring gear is stamped 139 tooth,which is what parts book says it should be. If anyone has been through this before,please help. I wanna drive my car!
ej1928 : That style starter DOES NOT use shims. Shims did not come along till 65 or so. oz1954: 6 volt and 12 volt parts are different. Does the ring gear match the old one tooth count? The rebuild shop may have put a 12 volt starter drive in that starter. And seems I remember the 6-12s have a little different nose also.
Is the car still 6 volts or converted to 12? If 12, and you are trying to use a 12 volt starter, that may be the issue, as you can't use a 12 volt starter with a 6 volt flywheel (139 teeth). The diameter of the gear on a 12 volt starter is smaller, so it may be just grabbing the top of the teeth?? just my theory at the moment... You can use a 6 volt starter on 12 volts.
Starter is a 6 volt and had been on the car for 10-15 years.The drive was getting bad as was the ring gear,that's why I replaced to start with. You are correct in that the 12 volt has a smaller drive gear (I checked one on the shelf). Car was converted to 12 volts years ago,and 6 volt starter has always been used on it.
I'm having the same problem and looking for a solution... Same car, same setup. The starter will grind away every once in a while. I have found that depressinge the clutch and going through the gears a few times seems to alow things to line up. I thought I needed to shim the starter but until JohnEvans shared the no-shim bit. Any further experience and knowledge you might be able to share would be greatly appreciated.
sounds like a worn out ring gear. could be that worn out starter did years of damage, and now the flywheel is worn too far.
I found my problem! Pulled starter solenoid,one guy under car to watch drive being engaged.One guy under hood manually engaging drive.Drive matched ring gear just fine.Replaced new solenoid with used one I had,and starter now works fine! Had a BAD NEW solenoid that evidently was slow to throw the drive out and engaged motor before drive was in the teeth of ring gear properly. Hope this helps someone else.
I don't mean to clog your thread but I wanted to say thanks for everybody's input. I was having the same problem and this helped me work it out.. Thanks Again!
up with the same issue... so, this is the starter that I have: http://www.parts123.com/parts123/yb.dll?Parta~ShowPicTxt~Z5Z5Z50000014a~Z5Z5Z5CAU1O~Z5Z5Z51 I believe it was installed by the last owner, this is labeled as a 12 volt, and some websites, like the one I took the picture from rate it as a 12 volt 49 to 54 car starter... I took it off yesterday but I already reinstalled it, I'll took it off again later today to count the teeths on the starter and on the flywheel, can someone please tell me the right match? I've read about 139 or 168 flywheel teeths, so related to each one how many teeths the starter drive should have? car started off for the first time after dropping a freshly rebuilt 235 last saturday, and I did the cam break in, but now it seems like the starter is spinning good, but the solenoid is an hit and miss, and when it hits sometimes it engages the flywheel and sometimes it does an horrible metal scratching noise... I'm looking to do it right first time if possible, 'cause shipping costs to Italy for a starter would be more than the starter itself... last question, can a 6v starter with 6v solenoid run on a 12v system, I've read mixed opinions about this... thank you all in advance guys, hope that someone will chime in to enlight me!
I used the 6V starter on 12V to move the whole dang car into a garage when it quit running and seemed to have a fuel problem and I didn't have time to mess around. Still works fine. It won't hurt anything.
No problems running a 6v starter and solenoid in a 12v system. I have that combination myself in my ´54.
Similar problem, old flywheel was 139 tooth with 6 volt starter and 91/4 in plate. I found a 10 1/2 in flywheel and had a 139 tooth ring rear installed. Now the outside diameter of ring gear is 3/16 larger than old flywheel and the starter wont engage . Do I need to go to 12 volt starter, or did I just get a bad ring gear, I like to old style foot pedal and would like to keep if possible.
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