dbreese Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 This past Sat I had the car up on a rack at a friends shop to do an oil/filter change. While up on the rack I was going around and checking bolts wiring and other things. I just happened to put my hand on the starter motor and I felt it move. I was able to wiggle it back and forth about a 1/16" of an inch. At first I thought it was loose where it bolted to the block. On further inspection I discovered the play was where the motor bolted to mounting block that bolts the starter to the engine block. The starter I have (Summit Brand Hitachi Style) is clockable and the motor is held in place to the starter mounting block by 3 allen head bolts. The bolts can be removed to clock the starter as needed to clear headers and the oil pan. Well the allen head bolts had worked themselves loose. Thank goodness I caught it when I did. Could have wrecked the starter/flexplate. Funny thing was the starter never gave hint it was not right. I removed the starter, removed the allen screws and inspected them. Threads look good and the threads in the starter block looked good. Starter gear and flexplate looked fine. Cleaned the bolts and re-installed with red loctite. Fixed. To make a long story short, if you have a clockable starter ya might want to make sure the allen bolts are tight and head off an problems. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monte70car Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 Dave good point I just put a brand new MSD mini starter on my towards the end of Aug start it one time started great now the starter seems to stay engaged once the motor fires and its got both shims between the mounting block and the starter and two shims between the block and mounting block. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbreese Posted October 9, 2012 Author Share Posted October 9, 2012 Don't know why I didn't notice it when I was checking the valve lash last weekend. Bumped the engine over with a remote starter button and never saw it. Not very observant on my part. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wallaby Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 Thanks for the heads-up. I just put one of these clocking starters in mine. The instructions give a very low torque setting on those bolts because they are so small. Because mine uses something like a cone to set the clocking, it was also important to tighten the bolts in stages to keep it from cocking over to one side and messing up the alignment. The instuctions also said locktite was a good idea on those fasteners (not included). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
680HPStroker Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 Thank David. I'll have to check my MSD mini starter and make sure everything is tight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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