starter
 

1969 351W. Spun rod. turned crank replaced all bearing. put back together and now am putting a 5 speed behind it. Had the flywheel zero balanced. Reassembled. Had starter problems. Grinding sound during cranking. Can see the bendix is staying engaged. Replaced mini starter. Still doing it!!! bendix is staying engaged and a grinding noise during cranking. Put the flexplate and auto bellhousing back on and it is also doing the same thing. Right now i am doing all of this out of the car, just have the battery hooked up directly to the starter, and a trigger hooked up to the soleniod on the starter. negative cable is bolted to the front cover. battery is fully charged. motor spins freely, very little effort required to spin the motor over by hand with the spark plugs removed and no valve train, less than 85 foot pounds to turn..
I am so frustrated.

Re: starter
 

Iam guessing the teeth are in good shape on the flywheel and starter. I take you havent installed the cam and pushrods and rockers yet? As stupid as this sounds, is the starter just sounding diffrent because there is not enough load on it ? Also most starter's will not kick out or disengauge the flywheel until the engine trys to start. (the force of the the flywheel makes the starter drive kick out when the engine starts) Have you noticed metal shavings or the gear or flywheel starting to look bad? If not you may not have a problem. Ive cranked over lots of diffrent engines without spark plugs in them and sometimes the starter drive will get hung engauged. Anyways just my 2 cents. Hope this helps, good luck. ( You might put the starter on another engine that runs and see if it grinds and stays engauged then).

Re: starter
 

Yes, the teeth are fine..Camshaft is installed, however valvetrain isnt set yet.. Its interesting to hear that the starter needs help disengaging. Never thought about that.. Been having some difficulties and didnt want to get to a point where i would have to pull the motor out again!!!! NO metal shavings..I dont have another small block running to test the starter, but it is brand new as of 8 pm tonite.

Re: starter
 

A starter off the engine will kick the bendix in and out with no problem off the engine. But when the starte drive is engauged into the flywheel it very well can stay enguaged if the engine dosent start or (kick back some what from not haveing any compresion).