Geared Starter go - no go!

[vxah]

Have you still got the old inertia solenoid hooked up and working? If so you might not hear the light noise of the pre engaged starter over that solenoid? If you have removed it from the circuit I guess you must have lengthened the solenoid feed wire? Is the cable heavy enough for the job and connections good? Might be that moving the engine back and forth wiggles a connection?
The pre engaged starter takes a fair wack of current to pull in so an undersize cable could give you zero noise rather than a click if there is a large voltage drop?
I also ran a Lucas pre engaged starter for years with the "wrong" side of the ring gear and never had an issue.
During the rebuild I fitted a geared motor and had to machine the flange down like someone said earlier as I only had half engagement on the ring gear!

[pharriso]

You should hear the solenoid of the pre-engaged starter engage. I tried testing one after rebuilding the solenoid, holding it in my hand.... Hmm won't do that again.

As has been suggested check the starter is getting power from the original solenoid on the bulkhead.

[mark030358]

Hi,
I had issues with my pre engaged starter from Brise. It constantly hit the flywheel. Anyway, turns out it was my backplate and even the Lucas would foul occasionally. SoI bought a new back plate, but prior to fitting thought I just put a dremel on the hole where the starter fits. Put back the old Lucas and no problems, so just left the original one fitted. When it dies I'll try the brise again. Also tried 9 and 10 tooth pinion gears with the brise and neither fixed it, it was purely a slight misalignment caused by the back plate.
Cheers
Mark

[rgh0]

You should hear a click as the pre-engage pinion hits the flywheel if its getting power and trying to engage. I would suspect the ignition switch or wiring has an intermittent fault.

cheers
Rohan

[pharriso]

By back plate you guys mean the sandwich plate?

[mark030358]

Yes, I mean the sandwich plate...

[gus]

IF you hear nothing, it is not about the flywheel or anything mechanical

How is it wired?

many use the stock firewall solenoid, and it can fail, or the switch can fail

the true test is to bench test it.

'rocking the car' fixing it can likely be a bad ground, either at the block or at the battery/chassis connection

[prezoom]

When I was finished with the modifications to the flywheel, including the different spacer for the starter, I bolted the starter to the sandwich/back plate to test the starter. Hooked directly to a good battery, and using a remote starter button, when I pushed the button, nothing happened. The remote starter button was connected between the power terminal and the solenoid activation terminal, and upon checking the button for continuity, it proved good.

Several attempts were made, still with no results. I could hear the solenoid operating and could see the pinion engaging the flyweel, but nothing was happening. I then decided to remove the solenoid from the starter, and found the solenoid was not traveling far enough to have the heavy duty contacts make contact. A little cleaning and physical movement of the contact mechanism, and the starter was reassembled. The next attempt, and the solenoid did what it was supposed to do, engage the starter pinion gear and complete the starter motor power contacts. All was now well.

A bad connection at the starter solenoid terminal would give the same results.

[vxah]

This is why the op needs to define "nothing", as in just a light click, chink or buzz... Or, really "nothing" , not even the creak of the key switch?

[l10tus]

All,

Good recommendatiobs thanks.

Guess I'll check what (if any) noise I get?

Luckily, my hearing is excellent, so I should be able to report exactly what is heard.

Regs,

Phil.