I went to replace the starter and decided to take a close look at the ring gear and this is what I found. Now I'm not sure what it is supposed to look like but this is not it correct?



ring gear

 

That's pretty beat up. What's strange is that the teeth appear to mostly be chipped on the front side. I wonder if it was flipped at some point to put fresh teeth on the back?

 

Its possible but that was before me. How hard is it to replace this. The part looks cheap but I'm guessing it involves removing the engine? or transmission?

 

You have to pull the flywheel, so pulling the trans is easiest. The typical way of removing the old gear is to split it between teeth with a chisel, sometimes after drilling a hole in it. To install a new one, freeze the flywheel and put the new ring in the oven, then quickly slide onto the flywheel.

 

Were you having problems with starter not engaging or bouncing off the ring gear and spinning? If you were not having any serious issues you could run it like that until you have time or chance to fix it. That is assuming you drive it now.

 

I started with grinding sounds so I pulled the starter and replaced the starter drive. Then it was jamming so I installed the bracket. Kept jamming. Decided to ditch the old starter and switch to a mini starter. I'm afraid if I install it I will get a few months of service and then it will eat up the new starter's gear.

 

Oh yeah then you probably need to put a new ring gear on there.

 

No need to freeze the f/wheel. Just put the ring gear in the oven @ 250 degrees for about 1/2 hr then grease the flywheel register with some never seize and drop the ring gear on. Have a hammer ready in case you need to bump it home.
I've done many of them this way.

 

Thanks for the tips. This site is great! At this point I am mostly afraid of the transmission removal but that's just because I have not done it yet.

 

Hey John,
If you can rebuild a Porsche 914 .... You got this! It's always a test
of your patience when you start unraveling one thing only to find something
else that's the root cause of the problem. Hang in there - you are doing great!

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

Is your engine a 226? If so, count the teeth on the ring gear, it's either 112 or 114. Both were an option and if your start drive is wrong it could bind or do damage. Don't think just because you used the drive already in the truck that it's right, because mine was not.

 

It's a 239 but I will count them

 

Do you have a light-duty 3-sp? They aren't that hard to pull at all. I have had mine out at least 5 times for various reasons, LOL. Takes less than an hour after you've done it once. Perfect time to do the clutch, and have the flywheel faced if it needs it. An option is to buy a whole new flywheel with new gear already on it. They aren't that expensive.

 

In the shop manual for my '37 Buick it suggests flipping the worn ring gear to get more life from the other half. It's directions were simple, heat the ring until it changed color, but not red hot, tap the ring gear off, flip and reheat and drop back on using a hammer to tap into place. It was fairly easy.

As for pulling the tranny. I had to pull the tranny out of my panel truck. I pulled the seats, panels have two bucket seats, remove the tranny cover and I was able to left it out by hand once I got all of the bolts out and a floor jack under it to offer support. The three speed tranny isn't too heavy. I did it myself but it would be helpful to have help. I've also done it to other vehicles from the bottom but they didn't have the big access panel in the floor like our old trucks.

Just a few more suggestions to think about.

 

From his picture, it appears that's already been done before. The front is to the right in the picture, and the starter hits from the rear. The teeth are worse on the front than the rear.

Obscurity, what size clutch do you have? Which trans?