I have a 77F100 with the 300 6cyl. For some reason this truck is eating starter's. The flywheel is new and so far isn't damaged. This is the third starter that's been installed. The damaged to the starter's has all been the same. The teeth on the starter drive are being damaged. The most resent appear's to have just one tooth tore all to piece's. To me it appear's that the drive isn't going in far enough, and isn't close enough to the flywheel. Is this possible. Oh yes I feor got. The starter designed for the truck made a horrendous noise. I replaced it with the early version and the noise went away, but it's still damaging starter's. If there's more than 1 starter for this appliction, could there be more than 1 flywheel. It has the C4 transmission. Any help greatly needed.

 

I found the problem. When I converted the truck from manual to automatic I used the block plate from the manual. Apparently these plate's are different from each other? The fix was to grind the starter opening in the plate to allow the starter to be moved closer to the flywheel. Thought this might come in handy for someone in the future.

 

Looks like I get to look forward to something...

Thanks for the heads-up.