hey guys, i have a 350 5.7 (i believe) with a 4spd Muncie, my starter was making all kinds of funky noise a few days ago, and i assumed it was the 31 year old starter that was originally on a 305 and not made for the 350 that was swapped with it. well i changed the starter and now it looks like this starter is chewing up the flywheel big time, it still has teeth so its not breaking them off completely, i know i will need a new one in time but i just lost my job so my daily driver / project wasnt a good idea lol. is there anything i could do to prolong the life of this thing? only a small flywheel section seems to be chewed, would putting shimms on help at all? thank you guys!

 

Shims might help,were there any on the old starter?
Mid '70's and later Chevy starters can be a fitment pain,if you still have the old one and it fit get it rebuilt,there's no difference that I know of between a 305 & 350 starter.
I learned the hard way years ago that it's best to get your starter rebuilt if you have one that fits.

 

it fit, and the only difference was it had 2 bolts instead of 3, but it was making the same noise, we just didnt see anything wrong with the flywheel, we are guessing that the old one may have started to strip the flywheel teeth or something, and i dont have it anymore, it was a $15 core charge lol

 

If you're getting a gear grinding noise when starting, your bendix gear is too far away from the flywheel. Shimming the starter down as a whole, will only put the gears farther apart. You need to try shimming under the outboard mounting bolt point first, which will rock the starter on an angle closer to the flywheel.