What Do You See In This Picture?

Starter drives are made of softer metal than the ring gear so you will replace the drive several times to one ring gear.

 

I had assumed that was because the ring gear spreads the wear over many more teeth.

 

That is also true.

 

But doesn’t the ring gear tend to stop on the same spot? The teeth right where I pulled the starter off we’re worn, but if you looked up and down the ring from there, there was almost no wear at all.

 

I would maybe say "spots" =plural.

The engine would probably have a tendency not to rest at the top of a compression stroke, but otherwise the flywheel could tend to stop anywhere else in it's cycle, I'd think.

Then unworn area you saw therefore could be a TDC point.

 

Yeah that makes sense to me. I had read elsewhere that the wear spots on the ring would tend to be several degrees in width, and 180 to each other. But, I haven’t taken it out to verify, so we’re left with a subjective opinion rather than empirical evidence on my part. The logic makes sense though.

 

When you idle down and turn off the key, the engine is in a free spin cycle. It will stop on the highest resistance point be it main bearing, rod bearing, piston-valve compression etc. This highest resistant point will come up the most times which puts the flywheel stopping in the same place relative to the starter. If you remove the ignition wire to the distributor and crank the engine you will notice the engine will crank unevenly in RPM. on a worn engine. A very well balanced and blue-printed engine will have a very even crank speed and the flywheel will stop in various positions.

 

I’ve also heard of that. And I suppose that is the quick “fix”. However, if you’re going to open things up to that point, you’d might as well buy another ring gear. They’re cheap enough...

But it proves the point, that wear tends to occur in only two spots on a four cylinder. Luckily, the new starter has taken care of all my issues and we can have the leisure of discussing the issue from an arm-chair instead of a creeper. Now that brings up a whole new topic...

 

I see the 180 wear on my flywheel but no ring gear to replace,so i would assume, rotate the flywheel 90 degrees and extend the life another 90k

 

This fits the F-Head? I did the Toyota starter and it seems to have puked already

 

Fits the V6.