I changed the engine in my 94 k1500, after connecting everything and filling it with fluids I threw a battery in it and tried starting it, the starter was grinding pretty bad, so I bought a new starter and the same noise happened, than I bought shims and installed those and the same thing still happened, then I noticed my flexplate looked slightly bent so I replaced that and the same noise still happens. Any guidance would be appreciated, thanks!
Do you have the correct gm factory starter bolts?
They look like this
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Notice the knurled part just above the thread.
Dont use anything else or the starter can wander around on you and always use a torque wrench. Never ever use an impact. You can snap the corner off of the block where the outside bolt mounts.
Im assuming that you put your old starter on the new engine?
The bent flex plate probably ripped it up.
Im also assuming you are using aftermarket or rebuilt starters.
OK down in the weeds here.
The engagement depth between the starter gear and the ring gear is critical.
The starter is a very high torque motor with a small gear.
That is so it can turn the engine through its compression strokes untill it starts.
The ring gear is supposed to transfer that torque into the crank but the compression is fighting it.
So any misalignment or excessive gap or lack of release at the starter to ring gear can shred the starter gear or rip teeth off of the ring gear.
That gap is too big, you have minimal engagement.
That is what tears the ends of the gears off.
If that gap is too small, the starter gear wont release as the engine starts.
That is "Starter drag"
How did you figure out what shims to use? Sometime you need a half a shim on the outside and two cut off shims on the inside.
Back in the last century, we used to pull the torque converter cover off and set that gap between the starter gear and the flex plate with a drill bit. Sometimes a fat paper clip.
You cant do that on a 94.
Take the starter out, paint the bendix gear.
House paint gear grease toenail polish whatever.
Pull the coil wire and disconnect both injectors.
You dont want it to start and you dont want it to flood.
Put the starter back in using the correct bolts and turn it over a few times.
Pull it and look and the wear pattern on the gear.
It should be somewhere fore and aft in the middle of the starter gear.
Not at an extreme end.
And the paint after just a few turns.
should still be on the deepest part of the gear and worn off in about 80 percent of that gear maximum.
I measure mine by .020 off of the radius of the gear on the flats.
Chevy starters are not bolts in.
Especially when you swap engines or use aftermarket starters.
Use the same care and techniques setting up your starter as you would setting up your differential.
That motor stands between you and a tow truck.
