Yes, I'm BACK!!!

[MikeIIDC@domain.elided]

Yeah, baby, yeah!!!!

The real me has returned.  Remember how the last few days things have
been going surprisingly well for me?  Made some progress with the
Wagonmaster, sold a couple of the old Travelalls, Driving my bargain
basement Scout everyday with no problem, etc...

Well, the real me is back.  I just went out and bled the brakes on my
Wagonmaster, as they were TERRIBLE!  I managed to get all of the stuck
bleeder screws loose and completed the job myself, using a bottle with
some Brake fluid in the bottom to keep air from being sucked back in,
some fuel line, and myself loosening, then going and pumping the brakes,
then going under and tightening, then moving to the next wheel, etc.

So I get done, make sure all are tight, take it down off of the
jackstands-I don't like to run it up on these things unless I have
to-and hop in to start it up.  Sccchreeeeeeeee!  Starter starts to
catch, then goes into free-spin.  Try again-same result.  Try the old
tap it with a hammer trick-same thing. Try it about five times.  NEVER
catches once.

Let me say at this time that, rather than going to the trouble to punch
in different combinations of punctuation marks to represent my words, I
will simply use one asterisk each time-you may fill inthe areas with
your own vocabulary!

So is my * starter going bad or what?  The * thing is really * me
off!!!  Just when I think it is finally REALLY, REALLY ready to go,
something has to come up like this *!!!

OKay, now, for those of you that think that to "think" something is as
bad as to do it, I apologize!  You should not have  been subjected to
such punctuation!

And now that I have vented, let me ask the simple question again-does
this sound like my starter is going bad?  It has shown absolutely no
signs whatsoever of going bad-never whined like this before.  Either did
its old fashioned "nothing at all" when I turned the key-which I think
we traced to the bulkhead connector-or atsrted right up.  And as I said
the other day, the new battery that I put in seemed to eliminate the
"nothing at all" symptom almost completlely.  I think having the little
bit of extra power that the new battery provided was enough to "jump"
more or less the bad/dirty bulkhead connector.  So this is one I am not
familiar with.  I have never had one completely fail all at once.  Is
this possible?  It is the Delco Remy starter, though age is, of course,
unknown.  I hate to go out and try again and again, hoping it will jump
right in and catch.  I was thinking that perhaps it was something about
the frame flexing as I was jacking it up, and this had caused for some
minimal misalignment of the starter gear to the flywheel, and it simply
could not get back in right now.  But if this is the case, how do I
correct that?  Is it possible that the selenoid is bad and not throwing
the gear far enough forward to click into place?  Keep in mind that I
replaced the selenoid twice when I first got it to get make sure that
that was not the root of my "nothing at all" problem.

Any help is greatly appreciated, as this long weekend was supposed to be
spent working on other vehicles besides this one.  

As usual, sorry to bother you, sorry to rant and rave at you, and thank
you all so much for any help you may offer!

michael