I am trying to to install a new starter in the 1996 Suburban.
Last 3 times the pepboys mechanic did not use any shims and messed up the starter, the starter bendix locked up with the flywheel.
What is the Physical dimension of the seperation between the teeth of flywheel and the starter bendix teeth, so it will not lock up and damage the bendix. This time I am going to fix it right.
Just start out with one shim and judge if the engine sounds like it is cranking at a normal speed (don’t get fooled by something else like a low charged battery) and not having any intermittent engagement issues. This is the tried and true method.
If you could access the ares between the starter drive gear and the flex plate there is a spec. on spacing but I don’t see what value this is to you if you can’t access this ares.
You do a go-no go test with a certain gague of uninsulated wire to measure this gap.
Thanks for the suggestion. However, I have the crankshaft cover off and I am using calipers to measure the distance between the flywheel teeth and starter bendix teeth.
I am looking for a physical separation number if any on knows it.
A 98 FSM does not even mention the existance of shims but I know I have seen a picture of the gap being checked on some previous GM model.
I went back to 1983 in my AARC Data base and the measuring with a known gague wire is shown. It is also advised to diagnois if distance is correct by the noise generated during starter operation. Also it said a .015 shim (typical) will increase clearence by .005. I don’t believe your starter uses shims, both the FSM for 98 and The AARC data base does not mention shims for a 96 model but it does mention shims for the models they are used on,they do know about shims,in the proper application.