supercharged87

My car won;t start, the starter just comes out and clicks a few times and sometimes the bendix gear stays in the flywheel and doesn't retract. My first instinct is the battery is bad, but it is okay, and I even charged it and tried a jump box also and it still does the same thing. I shimmed the starter out so much that it just buzzed on the flywheel also and I had no luck with that either. So I then took the starter out and took it to 2 different parts stores and had it checked and it came up okay on both tests. I don't know what else to do. The starter worked fine before I did a T56 conversion, and ever since I got the car together, I haven't been able to get it to start. Any help given will be appreciated.

OBE1 95Z28

Not sure that you proved your battery is good. You also need to verify you have tight and clean connections to the battery, starter and ground to the block.

supercharged87

The starter is grounded thru to the threads, the block is painted where the starter bolts up however. But it worked like that before. All the connections seemed okay to me. Can a starter get weak and not turn an engine, but still pass one of the tests Auto Zone or Pep Boys gives them? The car is 12.5:1 compression, so I was thinking that maybe it got weak, but it would still turn a stock engine, thats why it passed the test, but not mine. I'm just reluctant to buy a new starter if I don't have to considering I just paid a ton of money to convert to stick. I'm going to pull all the spark plugs out tomarrow and see if it will turn.

supercharged87

Also, even if the battery was bad, I put a jump box on it and still did the same thing. The jump box will actually start my other car with no battery in it at all. The battery is a fairly new Optima, so it should be okay anyway.

scarface007

do a starter curent draw test , to see how many amps the starter is pulling this ill determine if the starter is too weak or it has some kind of electrical or mechanical problem .if you have a multimeter with an amp clamp just put it around your (+) cable and turn it over for 3-5seconds amps for a v8 should be at around 90 110 but check your starter specs .while cracking batter voltage should not drop under 11.5 volts eigther .hope this helps

supercharged87

It does help, that's exactly the next thing I was going to ask was about draw. Where can I get one with an amp clamp? My meter doesn't measure amps, just volts and ohms.

scarface007

i got mines from snap-on for my blue point meter but i think they are preatty much universal , if not try radio shack .

supercharged87

I found one, but it was only capable of measuring up to 10 amps DC. I guess I'll have to order one. Thanks alot for your help, though.