Strange behaviour

Was not sure under which section to post this as I am not sure what the problem is.

tonight i just finished changing the gearbox in my 1989 1.8 carb clipper.

despite charging the battery overnight she did not seem too keen to turn the engine over so i jump started her from my other car. everything seemed fine so took her out for a short spin. I notice when driving that the battery light on the dash was flickering very dimly, when i got back i noticed a strange werring noise coming from the engine bay. The engine bay also seemed really hot for the short journey (3.5miles) i just did. I measured the voltage across the battery with the engine running and it was only 12 volts although i am sure the alternator is ok. i switched off the engine, the starter motor was too hot to touch. I am fairly sure it was wired correctly since it did start the engine. I also noticed that despite the heat from the engine bay that the water temp guage had not moved.

So i think i may have a few problems here but am not sure what they are. Could it be that the starter motor is dodgy, drawing too much current and hence producing this heat? It may explain the water temp. I was thinking that maybe the werring noise could be the starter motor gear not disenguaging from the fly wheel properly. Does this sound plausable or could I have made some kind of error when putting everything back together??

hope someone could shed some light on whats going on.

Cheers

Jez

copy and paste this in the "big block carb engines" section :y:

Sounds like the starter did not disengage when you let the key go.
As you have had the gearbox off, check that the starter is located properly and that the flange is the same as the old gearbox. This may account for the noise and the possibility of the starter consuming heavy power on a short run and keeping the volts down. J.