ok, first this is a 98 olds bravada 4.3 i figure its the same since they are... anyway this is gonna get lengthy but i figure you should know the whole story... so here goes..

I bought this from a guy that didnt wanna keep putting the starter back in the housing because he snapped a starter bolt.. so he would shove it in there for about 5 turn overs then it would fall out and he would have to do it again... well after i bought it, untill i could get the bolt tapped i had a piece of wood in there.. worked good.. after a while i got the bolt tapped and bam.. everything was good..

well i overheated it and blew the intake gasket...
after i changed the intake gasket i started it up... drove to the gas station got some gas.. it was running a little rough so i thought the timing was off from taking the distrubutor out.. after messing with that i drained the battery down and the starter made this god awful sound and didnt work anymore... i took it out and my girls brother builds them and he took it apart and said it was fine...

i put it back in and it turned over like 3 or 4 turn overs then would slip off.. and grind... then it would catch and do it again... so im stuck here wondering if its the flywheel... and how bad of a job it is to change it if thats what it is... thanks for the help in advance and sorry for the lengthy post.!!!

Tim

 

You have to pull the transmission back far enough to get up inside there and remove the old flex plate (flywheel). I would do what you can to inspect the flex plate before you go through the trouble of getting in there and replacing it. It likely is the cause of your problem, but it is something you want to be sure of.