I went out to look at a friend's 4x4 V6 Ranger today to help diagnose a no start condition.

Another person had replaced the starter motor, but the engine still wouldn't start, and the starter motor sounded like it was spinning without engaging the ring gear.

I took out this rebuilt starter and it looked good, but I discovered that I could grab the ring gear with a couple fingers and turn it. There is some drag, but no horrible scraping sounds, and I can turn it all the way around by hand with little effort. The flexplate or whatever it is attached to turns with it, and there is no inspection cover to see more of what's going on. I'm pretty sure the transmission has to come out to fix this problem, but does anyone have experience with this?

It's as if the flexplate bolts at the torque convertor or crankshaft have failed.

 

It should've been making lots of noise before it stopped turning the engine. The bolts holding the flex plate to the crank either came out, or it cracked just outside of the bolt circle. If the bolts holding it to the torque converter came out, you would still be turning the engine. And yes the trans has to come off to fix.

 

I assume it is an auto since you said something about the torque convertor. It definately has to come apart. The flex plate is more than likely broken. If it sheared the flywheel bolts or broke the crank it would have made a noise and possibly locked up the engine and possibly broke the transmission housing.

 

Thanks for the replies. I am hearing the story of the failure third hand, and the story was that there was no unusual symptoms but the truck simply failed to start one morning. It had been driven by a friend of a friend so I can take this "information" with a grain of salt.

I have decided against tackling this project myself, but I would like to see the insides once the [automatic] transmission is removed. The transmission housing looks good, so I'm leaning towards the diagnosis of the flex plate breaking just outside the [crankshaft] bolt circle.