ray wrote:
> 76 Camaro Dirt Track Car... starter is (was) a rebuilt bigblock HD one,
> that's been given a new nose to match the flywheel, and the gear
> (bendix?) swapped for a used one when it jammed in the 307's bent
> flexplate.
>
> Was working fine. We had to pull the engine for oilpan repair (6 quart
> circle track pan + inner tie rod grease fitting = hole.)
>
> The car has three switches - power, ignition, and start. (makes it easy
> to bump the starter without the ignition coming on.)
>
> What started happening was the starter button appeared to jam on - spin
> and spin and spin. Hitting the main power switch didn't kill it either.
> Had to pull the battery cable. We did the "screwdriver" test across
> the terminals with the main power off (only the big power wire is still
> live straight from the battery) and it did the same thing - had to pull
> the battery cable. Double checked all the wiring and the switch - same
> thing.
>
> We pulled the starter, and started dismantling it. Everything looked
> ok, so we double checked the connections and bench tested it - ok...put
> it back in the car, same thing.
>
> the closest thing I could find in the shop manual taked about replacing
> the "clutch" and showed the gear assembly which engages the flywheel as
> being possibly bad, so we swapped it for one in a rebuild kit. That
> appears to have fixed it, but I'm wondering if that was just dumb luck
> or if that could actually have been the problem.
>
> From what I can tell it's like the circuit that pulls the plunger and
> everything "forward" when engaged was staying energized even when you
> disconnected it (we have a quick connect on the firewall for pulling the
> engine) and not disengaging.
>
> The only "good" out of this is that I didn't discover this at the track.
>
> Ray
oh yeah, we also disconnected the alternator in the off chance that
something in there was shorted/allowing power to backfeed through it or
something really weird. And remember, it's a racecar, there's no other
wiring - just a battery, a couple of switches, the alternator and the
starter, and the distributor and tach.

Ray