I just bought this car last summer/fall and the previous owner told me he had replaced the starter. I have not driven it much at all because it's cold and snowy. But today I went out to the garage to start it up and move it, last time I started it was just a few weeks ago. Well it made a horrible noise and I shut off the key before it did anything. I looked underneath and the nose cone of the starter had cracked off! Anybody ever experience this before? I have removed the starter and plan to replace it in the next day or two. The other thing to mention is that the flywheel inspection cover was missing too and he said it got bent up replacing the starter so he left it off ("You don't need it anyway") he said. ANy thoughts from any one would be appreciated!

 

its a good idea to have the cover on there. it the starter is not installed correctly it can mess it up. go here and click number 4
https://camaroforums.com/forum/93-02...62/#post557634

 

I believe the starter was installed correctly, it never made any unusual noises and always cranked well. But I suspect without the inspection cover maybe something on the road flipped up and hit the tip of the starter, cracking the nose housing, resulting in that part breaking off eventually.

 

i had this happen to me once before the whole cone and housing pretty much shattered but my starter was the original one. if i remember correctly the cover had to come off to get to one of the bolts.

 

It would have been a fluke thing, but anything is possible. Too tight or too loose of a starter to flexplate/flywheel gear mesh, loose mounting bolts, or using the wrong kind of bolts (hardware store type instead of actual starter bolts) is enough to allow movement and a possible cracked nose cone.

 

Must of been a NAPA starter.... I had it happen multiple times on my 81 Z28. Didn't matter what I did they seemed to not last long. Broke three of them and knocked out the apendex on the rest of them.

 

Yours must have been suffering from acute bendix-itis!

 

OK so what do you do? Buy new instead of remanufactured? My replacement I just got was from O'Reilly and it looked identical to the core I brought in. The O'Reilly one came with a tag attached to it with a picture of a starter with the nose cone broken off and a disclaimer that basically said it would not be covered under warranty if this is what happened because it's not caused by defect in materials or workmanship, but then they listed about ten items that will cause it. A bunch of ridiculous stuff like backfire, etc. The only one that made some sense was "not shimmed properly" and even that one doesn't make complete sense to me. Just because the bendix is too close or too far from the flywheel gear shouldn't cause the end of the nose cone to break off. Maybe the gears won't mesh right or maybe they will crash into each other but that shouldn't cause the nose cone to break off. Something crashing into the nose cone could do that, but what do I know. I'm just a shadetree mechanic.

 

if not shimmed right (to close) the shaft will put pressure on the nose when its engaged, that combined with the torque of the starter turning the engine over can do damage.

 

OK That makes more sense. So, I watched a you-tube video about how to shim a starter during installation the other day before I replaced mine. It was recently installed by a GM mechanic at a dealership so I will assume at this point that he would have known to shim it if it needed it. And when I removed my damaged one for replacement there were no shims. And according to the video I watched mine has the proper amount of clearance. So, if it happens again I'm not sure what I will do. We'll cross that bridge if we come to it.