[Canuk40]

Hi Randy,

There have been changes to the starter mounting plate supplied since we started way back in 2003. The original CAV part had oversize holes so there was no positive location of the starter. Therefore the starter mesh was dependant upon the clamping force of the screws in the cast aluminum bellhousing.

This works fine on stock 302s, not so fine on high compression bigger displacement mills like the Ford Racing 392 we put three starter drives, two complete starters and one flywheel ring gear on before figuring out there was A) machining errors on the bellhousing, B) No support for the starter to prevent it moving if the engine kicked back on cranking.

We now heli-coil all the holes in the bellhousing for mounting the ZF and the starter, use offest dowl pins to center the part and use our own Starter Plate, CNC cut in thicker steel to locate the starter in correct mesh and close off the bottom of the flywheel openning.

The result is an engine that cranks and starts like it should without eating starters. Starter life will be extended and easy cranking will benifit stock engines as well, even without the offset bellhousing issue.

We do sell these plates for CAV bellhousing to ZF for 149.00. The plate aligns to the block on the strait part of the offset dowel pin, the bellhousing locates on the offset end of the pin. Problem solved, too bad you cant see how cool the part looks (new part on left in pic below) when assembled.

Cheers