Loud grinding noise right after start, smokes a little from air cleaner area, then dies.

[memsiej]

Just finished doing a bunch of work over the last few days.

Dropped oil and transmission pans, new gaskets on both.

New oil and transmission fluid

Four new shocks.

Took off the rear drive shave and replaced a ujoint.

Drained and refilled front diff and new gasket

Drivers side valve cover gasket

Neutral Safety switch

And I think that's it..; what could I have messed up to cause this grinding noise? Any ideas? I'll pull off the air cleaner cover in a little bit and see if it is coming from there. Had that off at one point, maybe I put it on wrong? Also had to drop the starter and reinstall but the noise is after it's started. It does make a sound similar to a bad starter though.

Thoughts?

[memsiej]

Also, doesn't 'hold' a start. As soon as I take my foot off the gas, it dies.

[letank]

you are sure that you have oil in the engine oil pan? sorry to point the obvious...

[memsiej]

I did in fact pour 5 quarts in the filler tube and can only assume it made it's way to the pan. My big worry is that in all the wriggling to get the oil pan back on, something got hit/knocked/broken.

Gonna go check the starter. When I got it back from that shop (with a new starter) one of the two main support bolts was missing. Picked up a bolt at home depot today that seemed to fit- but maybe it tweaked the alignment.

[BCRAWLER]

Possible starter not releasing from flywheel?

[memsiej]

Detached, inspected, and reinstalled the starter. Looks OK, flywheel is a little worn. What would cause it to all the sudden not detach from the flywheel? And the reason I don't think it's that is because it doesn't 'complete' a start.

video linked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FVGZ7T ... e=youtu.be

[BCRAWLER]

Sometimes a starter needs shims between it and the engine to space the starter gear further away from center of flywheel. Usually required on remanufactured starters. Bolt surface sometimes refinished.Starter gear can jam itself in place juring starting.

[memsiej]

Yea maybe it is just another bad starter. But it sounds so different than the last time my starter went out.

[will e]

Sounds like the fan is hitting the shroud. Did you remove the shroud at some point? There are two sets of mounting holes.

[memsiej]

Never touched the fan or shroud, but I'll double check that it's not hitting!

[letank]

Detached, inspected, and reinstalled the starter. Looks OK, flywheel is a little worn. What would cause it to all the sudden not detach from the flywheel? And the reason I don't think it's that is because it doesn't 'complete' a start.

video linked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FVGZ7T ... e=youtu.be

sound like a starter hitting the flyiwheel, but not completly engaging the flywheel gears, or not releasing... I had it happened once... really annoying because my engine started, on the second try somebody did the starting and I was under the beep with a hammer banging the starter to help the release

Not too sure why it is not starting... it sounds like a healthy crank, and the engine seems to be cranking at the first try

[memsiej]

pulled the plugs, they smelled of fuel. dried, reinstalled, same problem. checked the wiring from starter solenoid, starter motor, ignition coil, and alternator (anything I could think that might be related) and they all had power.

Tried one last time, held the gas to see what would happen. Noise persisted, white-ish exhaust from back of car. When it cools I'll check the radiator cap to see if a head gasket magically blew. Then as soon as I let off the gas the car died. What did I manage to do... super frustrating. Will also be frustrating if it IS just another bad starter. 3rd in as many weeks.

[letank]

[quote="memsiej, white-ish exhaust from back of car. When it cools I'll check the radiator cap to see if a head gasket magically blew. Then as soon as I let off the gas the car died. What did I manage to do... super frustrating. Will also be frustrating if it IS just another bad starter. 3rd in as many weeks.[/quote]
whitish smoke is water vapor, a product of combustion, more on vold engine start.
starter is my best guess, ask them to test it before leaving the store, not an autozone starter I hope...

[memsiej]

No. It was an oreillys starter that I put in and that the crappy shop said was faulty so they replaced it with another oreillys starter. I just don't get it because the starter sounds like it's doing it's job- but the struggle sounds more like lack of combustion? But I'm not much one for diagnosis.

[toothofwar]

It looks like it was backfiring though the carb. Is there any way the timing has jumped on the chain or with the distributor. How many miles is on the motor? You could hand crank the motor over to top dead center on number 1 cylinder, then pull your dizzy cap off and check to see where the rotor is setting. It would only tell you roughly where it's at, but it will let you know if it jumped timing or not.

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[memsiej]

Maybe the timing jumped the chain? Could that have happened during the work I did? It's only got 135,000 miles on it.
Don't really know how to "handcrank the motor over to top dead center on 1 cylinder". Need a dummies guide or video or something. Maybe youtube will come through.

[toothofwar]

No problem. I put a socket on the harmonic balancer bolt (the large pulley at the bottom of the motor) and use a ratchet to turn the motor slowly. There is a groove cut in the balancer and a notch on the timing cover that has "tdc" or "0" on it. Line up those 2 Mark's. Once that's done then you can pull the distributor cap off and see where the rotor button is pointing. It should be pointing to the number 1 spark plug wire on the cap, or 180 degrees away from it. If it's anything other than that you might have a problem.

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[toothofwar]

Also, may want to check the order of your spark plug wires. If they got out of order on the cap it would wreak havoc. Lol

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[memsiej]

WELL. I followed tooths' instructions and hand cranked the motor, popped the dist cap and check rotor placement (was good), redid all the wires for the third time. Low and behold, it starts!!! The grinding noise persists but I'm pretty sure that at this point it has to do with the starter- either it's not disengaging from the flexplate or something. I'm just happy I was able to back it out onto the street and out of their driveway.

So I fgure two separate things were happening-
1: when doing the valve cover I probably put the wires back in wrong, which messed up the timing and caused the no-start.
2: the grinding was/is a starter or flexplate issue. The ollllllld starter I replaced a few weeks ago was torn to bits, there might be some metal up in there or the flexplate might be shot from how bad that starter was.
Either way, I figure I fixed the problem that I caused which feels good, and the starter issue has been ongoing for a while so I don't feel *quite* as responsible. I'll update when sis takes it to a mechanic and they diagnose.

So much thanks to everyone that helped!! I don't know what I would've done without ya'll.

[toothofwar]

Glad you got it all (mostly) sorted out. We all had faith in you!

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