how to mount starter on TCI sfi steel bellhousing

Dear Moparts Community,

I keep busting starters on my HEMI racecar. It's a 1974 Petty Nascar Charger. It's got a 426 Hemi, a TCI to Chevy bellhousing, a Tex T101 4-speed and a Nascar Ford 9" rear.

The problem is that the upper mounting hole for the starter motor has a smaller diameter than upper hole in the starter bracket. So I fabricated a small sleeve and inserted it in the bigger starter hole to get it centered on the smaller diameter hole of the bellhousing.

However the starter pinion is so close to the McLeod aluminium flywheel, that the starter pinion gets pushed outward and rubs in the starter housing.

When I leave the sleeve out and tilt the starter motor to the most outward position, the starter pinion almost freewheels and barely engages the flywheel, rubbing down the flywheel teeth.

Would you have an advice on how to properly position the starter motor ?

Hi doc,

Is that really a TCI? I did not know TCI manufactured manual transmission bellhousings.

I made a slightly offset bushing in my lathe to correct starter alignment. That was on a Quicktime so not 100% the same. The bushing is pressed into the starter to aid in assembly and repeatability. How far off was the bellhousing from the crank centerline? Are you sure the starter is mounting flush with the ATI?

you're right, it's a Quicktime bellhousing. Sorry for the mixup.

For now, I have a centered bushing that's pressed in there. Alignement is flush to the bellhousing surface. I'll check flatness.

The alignment of the bellhousing might also be an issue as the last engine change was a swap, with the the bellhousing still mated to the transmission and the engine dowels just where they were previously.

Thanks for the hint to the offset. How did you measure how much offset was needed ?

When we first assembled the drivetrain the starter sounded "tight" when it was cranking over. By "tight" I mean that you could hear a sort of growling sound when the engine was turning over using the starter. My solution was to make another bushing with a .010 offset and that made everything sound right to me. By sounding right I mean you could hear the engine cranking and starter motor with no obvious gear meshing sounds. While unscientific this did solve my issue.

If it was me I would dial in the bellhousing as a precautionary measure. It is surprising to me that the the starter gear can mesh with the flywheel ring gear with that much side load. You would think if it was out of alignment enough to side load the starter pinion it would simply not mesh. My other thought is that something is loose.

For reference I am using a Rob MC performance starter which is of excellent quality.

Hopefully you can find some resolution to your problem. We sure had a lot of headaches getting the QT bell to work in my Dart. It's almost as if they copied all of the mistakes from Lakewood and never ever looked a any OEM parts. For instance, the 3/8" holes on the bottom block bolts...only in the bell. The block plate was drilled correctly for 7/16" to match the block. Not impressed with my Quicktime RM-6073 at all.

IMO it has quite a few obvious design flaws and also makes the car unnecessarily difficult to service.

yeah, that grinding sound is there.

I'll measure the bellhousing alignment, correct it and also fabricate an offset pushing as you did.

thanks !

Found the flaw ! It's casting flash at the lower end of the blocks mating surfaces, which pushes the Quick time away !!

In order to race this week-end, I corrected this with a washer, additionnally to the offset sleeve in the upper starter hole.

The week-end was saved (2nd in class in both races) , but everything has to come out now to be corrected.

Thanks for your hints :-)

Yeah I just helped a guy fix some of the problems with his Quick Time bell housing. Whoever designed the QT bellhousing for Mopars was a moron. This bellhousing looked really nice in the pictures but when you tried to use it you quickly found out that it didn't work. It required several hours of machining time to get it to work and it still wasn't as good as a factory cast bellhousing. Sometimes the folks who design aftermarket parts should just try to make the part work before they try to make it pretty.

Agreed. What modifications did you have to perform to solve what problems if you don't mind sharing?


Doc - Glad you got it figured out! Happy motoring!

The hole for the Z shaft wasn't drilled properly and there wasn't a good way to put a nut on the backside due to the way they bent their bracket. The really big problem was that the pivot for the clutch fork was poorly designed. The first time the guy pushed on the clutch pedal the QT bracket folded up like cheese. I designed a new pivot bracket and had it CNC machined from billet steel to solve that problem. There also wasn't a cup for the nose of the starter. So basically three serious design errors with the bellhousing as sold.

I fought with the same problem on the clutch fork pivot. We ended up machining one down out of a hunk of angle iron.

I also made a .625" thick spacer to restore the linkage geometry because none of the aftermarket clutch companies set the pressure plate fingers to factory spec height which angles the clutch fork rearward forcing the linkage to be adjusted over center causing even more issues.

The other thing we had to do was move the pivot bracket inward towards the crank centerline in order to center the clutch fork fingers on the t/out bearing. How you can have a bellhousing with 5.25 and 4.80 register options and not make a provision for adjusting the fork pivot position is beyond me.

And then there is the hole for the clutch fork, which could have been made in the factory shape to ease assembly (I can't install my clutch fork with the transmission installed) and allow the stock fork boot to be used.

Agreed, totally stupid design. It needs to be redesigned to fit a Long PP too. The B&B three finger 10.95" clutch barely clears as it sits!