[HO455]

'68OrangeSunshine;9287622]The hot rod shops used to sell a USA-made Accel Starter Solenoid that was high quality and rebuildable that would go on any Bendix-style Starter.
Check Jegs and Summit.

OK. Jegs shows Tuff Stuff p/n: 3510.....$29.99

Can't guarantee country of manufacture, but it's the kind I was thinking of.
I have the Accel versions on two of my starters. Been working good for so long, I forgot when I put them on.

Originally Posted by '68OrangeSunshine

The hot rod shops used to sell a USA-made Accel Starter Solenoid that was high quality and rebuildable that would go on any Bendix-style Starter.
Check Jegs and Summit.

OK. Jegs shows Tuff Stuff p/n: 3510.....$29.99

Can't guarantee country of manufacture, but it's the kind I was thinking of.
I have the Accel versions on two of my starters. Been working good for so long, I forgot when I put them on.

Thanks for the information. But fortunately for me NAPA warranted the starter. I was under the impression it had a lifetime warranty but in reality it has a LIMITED lifetime warranty. Lots of loop holes in the warranty but when I purchased it I bought it through work and paid cash. NAPA said they only warranted it because I bought it on the company account.

Of course during installation things got difficult. Surprise, suprise, surprise! The machined block the starter bolts to wasn't machined accurately. The immediate problem was the one hole nearest the oil pan didn't seem to be vertical and I needed to file the part of the hole closest to the block to allow the mounting bolt to start and turn freely. More on the mounting block later.

Since my old starter required both shims I added the second set before I tested the starter mounting position. (Photo #1 shows the shim and the bolts to remove to access the shims) However this time when he starter was installed the starter drive gear was too far out so I had to unbolt the starter and remove one set of shims. But now when the starter was reinstalled there was too large of a gap. Grrrr!

Crikey and other interesting words were spoken. So again I removed the starter, removed the mounting block and did a thorough inspection of the mounting surfaces and the shims. There I found that the factory installed large shim had what looked like dried red Loctite underneath it and the holes for the mounting bolts were deformed so the shim was thicker around them. After filing things flat and cleaning all the surfaces I reassembled the starter with both sets of shims and reinstalled the starter and the drive gear clearance was now within specifications. This made me start to think the starter had been previously been returned.

Here is a link to when I installed the first starter some 37k miles ago.

https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/...698377&page=19

Moving on to checking the gear mesh clearance is where I came up against the other bit of poor machine work. The old starter didn't need any shims to be in specification. This starter without any shims had close to .100 of clearance. The specification called for between. 040 and .060. Reading the instructions it said to put shims between the mounting block and the engine block only at outer bolt of the starter to close the gap.

I've never had to do this kind of shimming on a starter before but I remember years ago removing a starter that only had half a shim installed and briefly wondering why it was installed that way. Anyhow I started inserting shims and in the end it required a 1/16 and a 1/32 shim stack to get the gear clearance to .0555 (The size of a #52 drill bit). (Photo #2 shows the partial shims I made and photo #3 shows which bolt I put them under.)

I'm not real warm and fuzzy over how things went together but, the starter sounds fine and spins the engine as expected. I guess time will tell. At one point I considered taking it back but when I got it the counterman said it was the only one in stock.