Mini-starter misadventure

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Bobacuda

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When I installed the new drivetrain (318) in our 67 Barracuda, I replaced the gear reduction starter with a new mini-starter.

When the mini-starter functioned properly, it was nice. However, after starting the car 4-5 times, it intermittently would not engage to start the car. Instead, it would hammer the starter drive into the torque converter starter gear, kicking in and out, barely turning the torque converter. WTF?

I finally cleaned 1/4” to 1/2” of grease, grime and New Mexico red sand off the old starter and swapped the two. The old starter fired right up and has not done anything other than what it is supposed to do (so far).

Can’t see anything wrong with the new mini-starter. Can’t figure out what happened. Any ideas?
 
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I don’t know what could be wrong without checking it out hands on. But I always use a 95-360 starter on my cars. They always seem to work. Is this what you are talking about or is it an aftermarket
 
I have never had that problem. But it looks like a bunch of other guys have
 
Could it need a shim? I know most of the time Mopars don't need one like old Chivys did, but I've run across it before. A washer on the bolt between the starter housing and block did the trick.
 
d5667 said:
I don’t know what could be wrong without checking it out hands on. But I always use a 95-360 starter on my cars. They always seem to work. Is this what you are talking about or is it an aftermarket
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Is that the 96 Dakota Factory Style?
 
You got the wrong starter. There are at least two different ones and what's happening is, just like the aftermarket always does, they combine several part numbers into one. If you look at the bendix gear, I bet you'll see a button on the end and the gear teeth do not extend to the end of that button. Also, I bet a dollar the bendix does not extend all the way to the end of the inside of the snout either. Those two things combined either don't allow the bendix to engage the ring gear AT ALL, or they work a few times and stop. We've run into it several times at Matt's place and had to swap back to the old Chrysler starters because the "wrong one" is the only one stores can get. The "right one" will have the gear teeth extending all the way to the end of the gear body and the bendix will slide all the way into the inside of the nose cone. Otherwise, you'll likely have that issue. I've preached it many times here, only to be ignored, but it's a fact. I don't know what the difference is to get the right one. Whether it's a difference between manual and auto or exactly what it is, but there IS a difference "SOMEWHERE".
 
Thanks to all for the input. The snout is not cracked, but the mini-starter fits the description RRR provided. I think (bought it a while back) it is supposed to fit a 92 or 96 Dakota, 5.2 L.

Great, an eventual swap meet bargain.
 
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