starter problems

[deerej4840@yahoo.com]

I have a '77 CJ7 with a 304 I'm building. I bought it when it was in pieces and trying to put it back together. I don't know much about the mods to the engine except it has an edelbrock intake and a carter 4 barrel carb. I don't know if it has any internal mods or not. I recently got the motor running but after a few times of cranking it seems to tear the bendix up in the starter. I had the starter rebuilt and got it running again. The same problem occured again. This time it broke one of the mounting holes(the boss) off of the starter. It almost seems like the engine has too much compression for the stock starter. I have also replaced the flywheel, so it's not the ring gear.

 

[mud4feet]

Man, that's hard to say. Once it's started, the bendix should kick the starter out of the loop. After all, it's only there to make it fire. Without know what's inside, it's hard to say. Perhaps a compression tester???? Find out just what ya' got in there (compression-wise)?? From the symptoms, it almost sounds like there's something out of whack with the starter mounting (bent stuff, broke stuff, etc).