starter is clicking fast while starting. truck still starts

[Mountianjustice]

ive got a 92 C1500 with the 4.3L V6 and a 5 speed trans. i bought the truck Christmas day of 2016. All was well other than trying to find a factory 5 bolt steel wheel locally. Until yesterday when the starter began making a fast clicking when starting the truck. Never so much as a noise from it before yesterday. The truck is still being started for the time being but sounds awful and is embarrasing as hell. ive never heard a starter make fast clicking like this and still start the vehicle im 47 and have self maintained my own vehicles for 30 years. Engines,trans,suspension,ive done it all. did it as a job for a while. anyway ive cleaned all the connections from the battery down. I even removed the starter which is a napa reman that looks all but brand new. And bench tested it the bendix was fine and the starter works great. I couldnt get it to make any type of noise using the same battery from the truck and 20ft jumper cables. i did notice that the corners of the teeth on the flywheel looked awfully shiny. Can a starter just randomly start chewing up a flywheel? What would cause it? Can i just shim it if this is my issue? How can i know if it needs shimmed? It worked amazing for as long as ive had the truck. and just starts grinding or clicking one day? it tests fine and looks all but new

 

[Jcauli82]

I've got similar issues, my flexplate on my 98 k1500 5.7 4l60e is tearing up my starter though. 2 starters in the last week....I have shimmed it, unshimmed it, changed bolts, but sometimes it starts totally normal smooth start up, but more often than not it is a nightmare grinding noise, and will start eventually after a couple tries. I have hit my starter with a dead blow hammer and it has made it start smoothly, but I do not know what I am missing here....any suggestions?