454 Breaking starters

[johnfrederick]

I have a 1984 23G Chieftain with a 454. This classic only has 23,000 verified miles on it. Starts great and runs strong. Problem is after driving for a while and turning it off it will often kick back and struggle to restart. It has broken several standard starters doing this. So, I had it tuned up including timing and put a much stronger more expensive racing starter on it. That helped but it still kicks back on occasion.

Trying to figure out what's going on, any thoughts ??

Thanks, Jfred.

[eXodus]

what is exactly breaking on them?  Have you taken one apart?

Are they getting mechanical destroyed (gears)  Or are they burning up?

On potential reason is that either your starter relay or they starter key cylinder are worn out and don't let the starter completely disengage when let the key loose. So you poor starter keeps running while the engine spins up.  And it's not made to run at engine speed.
Pretty simple electronics upstream.

[Eyez Open]

https://www.classicwinnebagos.com/forum/index.php?topic=16207.0

Advance your timing to 8/12 degree's initial

[udidwht]

Kicks back after shutdown equates to dieseling. Check the timing on the motor.

[Eyez Open]

Kicks back after shutdown equates to dieseling. Check the timing on the motor.

That does occur. This starter problem however goes far beyond old RV' s. First all old starters are rebuilt, more than probably offshore. Old mark 4 engines used SAE standards, newer mark 5 and above used metric. It is my opinion old mark 4 nose cones have been left behind making for a very sloppy fit. I was just lucky to find a starter set up for SAE. Made simple the newer nose cones and bolts are sloppy in a mark 4  engine, so much so the starter twists and the bendix drive disengage enough to fail under a compression stroke. That results in enough kick back to break the starter.

As we speak I'm deep into hanging a new water pump,timing chain and balancer, the most frustrating part of this is the constant speed bump of running into both metric and SAE standards. The 80' were a chaotic time for GM.

I should add the starter bolt combination I mentioned in the above link has worked flawlessly for over a yr. 15 degrees initial timings, heat soaked nothing bothers it no longer. And that is a cheap 80 dollars rebuilt starter, not a 300 dollar powermaster.