I have a 1984 Blazer4x4 with a GM Goodwrench 350 and a THM700R4 that was rebuilt about a year ago and it seems to have a sticky spot that causes the engine to bind.
Over the last three years, the blazer has been eating starters every four months and ring gears about every 12 months and I finally think I found out why. The engine seems to stick.
A little while ago, the starter went out again. The engine turned over for about 20 seconds, then we stoped the cranking and then tried to start the craning again. All we heard was clicking. We hooked up the trusty battery booster and we still got a clicking sound.
Thinking that we had a bad spot on the ring gear, we got under the truck, took off the ring gear housing and tried to move the flywheel a little bit using a wrench. Up until now, this technique would have moved the flywheel. However, It would not budge. Finally we got out a breaker bar and and we got it to move and after that the engine could be turned with our usual technique/effort.
This tells me that there is a sticky spot that causes the engine to bind. I have noticed that sometimes when we are cranking the engine that there is a spot where the engine binds. I has attributed this to a ring gear problem but it seems that it is related to the engine problem I described above.
Has anyone run into this problem?