Starter nose, black or aluminum?

[William S.]

I am restoring the starter on my 65 L79, Nov 64 build. It is a 1107320 with a date code of July 64. My JG says the housing is semi-gloss black but does not mention the nose piece. When I bead blasted the nose piece it did not have any paint. Should it be unpainted aluminum or should I paint it semi-gloss black?



Also, my JG says the solenoid is cad, zinc or semi-gloss black. The one on my starter is not original because it does not have the Delco Remy Made In USA logo. The replacement was zinc, but because it did not cleanup very well, can I paint it semi-gloss black and not lose points, or will I lose points anyway because of the missing logo?

Thanks for your input.

[Ron G.]

Re: Starter nose, black or aluminum?

My experience has been that 4 speed cars have the entire starter painted black. An automatic car's starter was all painted except for the nose. I personally always refered to the other end as the nose, but after speaking with my counterpart, Mr Oslansky he straightened me out that the other end is the nose, or as Paul refers to the working end. That is the end that is not painted on automatics. I am willing to bet that the whole starter was painted being that your application is a 365 4 speed car. As far as the selonoid is concerned, the originals had a black plastic top. Replacements from Delco were brown. The body of the selonoid is I beleive a zinc finish. Two things. First, some solenoids we have seen on Bowtie/Survivor cars are all painted black, and again on some cars the entire starter bodies were for some reason toatally unpainted bare metal.

[Joe L.]

Re: Starter nose, black or aluminum?

My experience has been that 4 speed cars have the entire starter painted black. An automatic car's starter was all painted except for the nose. I personally always refered to the other end as the nose, but after speaking with my counterpart, Mr Oslansky he straightened me out that the other end is the nose, or as Paul refers to the working end. That is the end that is not painted on automatics. I am willing to bet that the whole starter was painted being that your application is a 365 4 speed car. As far as the selonoid is concerned, the originals had a black plastic top. Replacements from Delco were brown. The body of the selonoid is I beleive a zinc finish. Two things. First, some solenoids we have seen on Bowtie/Survivor cars are all painted black, and again on some cars the entire starter bodies were for some reason toatally unpainted bare metal.

Ron------

OK, I'll mention the correct GM terminology for the starter "nose". It is STARTER MOTOR DRIVE HOUSING.

[Joe L.]

Re: Starter nose, black or aluminum?

I am restoring the starter on my 65 L79, Nov 64 build. It is a 1107320 with a date code of July 64. My JG says the housing is semi-gloss black but does not mention the nose piece. When I bead blasted the nose piece it did not have any paint. Should it be unpainted aluminum or should I paint it semi-gloss black?



Also, my JG says the solenoid is cad, zinc or semi-gloss black. The one on my starter is not original because it does not have the Delco Remy Made In USA logo. The replacement was zinc, but because it did not cleanup very well, can I paint it semi-gloss black and not lose points, or will I lose points anyway because of the missing logo?

Thanks for your input.

William-------


ALL1963-68 Corvette small blocks used a starter motor drive housing that was aluminum and attached with one short and one long starter bolts. 1965 L-78 and 1967 L-88 also used this housing. On many of these original starters the housing is painted black with the rest of the starter. On some, the housing is unpainted. So, what was yours? Well, if you did not find even a speck of paint on the housing and you're sure the starter never had the housing replaced or been through a commercial rebuilding operation, I'd say that yours was one of those that was not originally painted. Very often, even when these starter housings are painted, much of the paint will flake off over the years due to poor adhesion of the paint to aluminum. However, it will not flake off down to the last speck.