Power Master Starter

[BadJoey]

Hi guys . I bought a new starter for my 440 Challenger about a year and 5 months ago .
.http://www.summitracing.com/parts/pwm-9613
It's only been about 300 miles since I put it on . What a thankless job .Being a 440 standard I had to drop headers , jack up motor, pull steering colume , pull z bar and a half dozen other things .Starter spins but drive gear doesn't come out till you let go of key .I  thought by buying a good starter I never have to change it again . One more thing I've been wrong about .All the wires are clean and the ground is good . Any thoughts before I start tearing things down ? I wonder if summit will stand by the starter a year and a half later . 300 miles on it maybe 50 start ups . It's bad enough just doing the labor for free .

[crash340]

check how the relay is earthed, on an auto trans the starter relay is earthed via the P/N switch on the trans (my 73 Cuda is anyway) i had a similar issue, new starter started to play up, not engaging etc and it was the plug on the trans switch all but off, pushed it on and good to go. Not sure how or if on a stick shift car the starter relay is done

[Chryco Psycho]

There is a reason why I tell everyone to avoid powermaster junk

[BadJoey]

Took starter to auto electric shop . when he first bench tested it sometimes the silnoid would not engage . So he took it apart but couldn't find nothing wrong so he cleaned everything and put it back together . Now it seems to work every time . Cost $40.00 . Waiting for a warm day to put it back together . If that's the end I'll be happy , if not boy is this a lot of work for nothing . Cross your fingers I,ll let yous know when I get to it but no warm weather in site . In the teens all week .

[Gus cuda]

If it was me I would take Neil's advise right now while you have it apart. I've never dealt with power master, but I do know I would be ticked off enough to go in a different direction. Good luck!

[BadJoey]

Alright here's where I am at . Got the starter back from the electric shop they cleaned everything up inside . 5 hours later doing the same thing . I contacted Power Master and send them my starter back . They went though it said the starter clutch was bad inside the starter . They send me a brand new starter the next step up better . The same problem . Now I'm wondering if I'm missing some teeth on the flywheel . I heard of this happening but never seen it .As I was looking I see there are different size flywheels . 10.5 and 11 inch along with different numbers of teeth .The motor and bell housing  is out of a 67 GTX not sure about the flywheel . Is the flywheel for a 67 GTX and a 70 Challenger the same ? And what is the different diamiters and no. of teeth . Going to drop dust cover and look for bad teeth tomorrow . Motor came in boxes so not real sure what's going on but sure could use some help .

THANKS in advance .

[Chryco Psycho]

If it worked once then you have the correct match as far as the belhousing & # of teeth on the flywheel , it would not work even 1 time if it was mismatched , I have heard of missing teeth but never seen it on a Mopar  .My suspicion is Power Master is the problem , there is a reason I avoid them as I said 

[BadJoey]

The new starter came with a spec sheet where they tested it before sending it out .

[Chryco Psycho]

& 

 I bought 4 starters is a row from a rebuilder , everyone failed immediatly , finally I was denied warranty so I took it apart & they were put a coating on the contact ring so I took the ring back to them & showed them the problem & reassembled my starter with the ring cleaned off & it worked fine .

[BadJoey]

Alright here's where I am at . Got the starter back from the electric shop they cleaned everything up inside . 5 hours later doing the same thing .

when I said 5 hours later I meant labor , the most recent starter hasn't worked once .

Anyway just had the dust cover off . First when I put the new starter in the bolt holes were too close together . T got it together but it was really hard going . As I looked inside the starter gear was behind the fly wheel meaning it could not come out if it wanted too . Either the gear is too big around or the mounting holes are wrong . Too bad the starter looks and goes in and out easy compared to factory . Guess I'll see what they have to say Monday . Sh&^ like this takes some of the fun out of things . I wonder what country these are made in .

[Chryco Psycho]

I feel for you , junk is junk