Nope - not normal! frown

Sounds like you may have a broken or missing snap ring on the drive housing end of the armature shaft (see the 2 pics below snapped from a 1954 Shop Manual which would be same as your 1955 1st Series starter).

I believe that snap ring is meant to keep the shaft from excessive end-to-end movement when the starter is all assembled.

Helpful??? headscratch

Dan
Attachments
Stomp starter cut-away view (arrow is snap ring to keep shaft located properly).JPG (51.8 KB, 209 downloads)
Stomp starter cut away view - arrow shows location of armature snap ring
Stomp starter exploded view (arrow shows shaft snap ring detail).JPG (26.25 KB, 209 downloads)
Stomp starter exploded view - arrow points to required armature snap ring
BLANK.jpg (227 Bytes, 208 downloads)


~ Dan
1951 Chevy 3 window 3100
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