If the bushings are bad it could be dragging the armature on the fields. Use you volt meter at the battery and see how far down it goes when you crank and how it rocovers. It shouldn't go below 11, I think, and should come back pretty close to the same battery voltage. A voltage drop test is done by setting the meter to volts dc, hold one end right on the neg battery post, not the cable end, and the other on the starter housing. Have someone crank it and note the reading. It needs to be less than 1 volt. Do the same with the pos, holdig it to the posts, not on the cable. Also anyplace that has high resistance will be warm to the touch, might even burn you.
And FWIW, starters don't have bendix anymore unless you have something pretty old. It's called a starter drive and it will just kick the starter out when it gets bad.