Well, you have that and a piece of mind!

 

I'd rather have sold the salvage and gotten all those weekends and vacation time spent working on it back... At this point I don't need a full-size diesel and would like to get a F150, but have too much time invested in the '03 to sell it right away.

 

Yeah, I hear ya on that!

It's not really any of my business but I am curious as to how the frame is and everything lines up now after your bad luck accident with it?

 

The frame wasn't bad. It hit on the front pretty square, more on the left, then rolled over slowly. It had a little side sway in the left rail and the left horn was bent out a little. Straightened the frame at my dad's shop with a very large I-beam and some 20-ton hydraulics. It would have been faster with a frame machine, but after a day I had everything measuring out to within 1/8" of factory frame specifications. Welded on new bumper mount flanges too, my winch bumper did a number on those. Everything is going together pretty well.

 

Still haven't figured the noise out. I thought maybe the starter bendix or ring gear were damaged, pulled the starter and checked the ring gear and all looked good. Turned the engine over by hand and checked the flexplate/ring gear all the way around and all looks good, no cracks or unusual wear. Reinstalled the starter, the sound is still there when cranking, but has changed a little.

Starter misalignment??? There's not that much slop in how it goes on. I tried it pryed all the way towards and away from the ring gear on the flex plate and the sound changes but won't go away.

I'll try to get audio tomorrow. The sound is most definitely coming from inside the bellhousing. Might even pull the trans tomorrow if I get real pissed off at it...

 

Flexplate cracked at crankshaft flange.

 

Cracked flexplate or internal separation in the torque converter. We had a torque converter separate in an Excursion when taking it on an off road test course and took a hard hit (while we're here event).

 

I've wondered about this, but the noise ONLY occurs when the starter is cranking the engine over. After it starts, it sounds great both at idle and over 3k rpm. I've taken it out for test drives and in drives well too with no issues.

The engine/trans mated up really well, no alignment issues and torqued the TC nuts to spec, so there is no reason for a flexplate/TC issue. I've found one other forum discussion which was similar and the guy blindly replaced his starter and the problem went away. Starter bendix and ring gear look great, so I'd rather not throw a $300 starter on it if I don't have to, also would rather not pull the trans just to look around, but I think I'm about to.

 

I agree it would be on the far end of my list considering the work involved. you could troubleshoot a little more if you can unbolt the TC and push it back away from the flexplate and try starting. I've done that on a much older vehicle. It would at least take out the TC question.

It would be better if you could determine if the noise is every revolution, or every other rev.

 

Multiple times per revolution. When cranking maybe 3-4 per second, suppose 1-2 per rev.

 

unbolting the converter wont work on a ford. they use studs and not bolts.

 

Right, I thought maybe if something was bound up or something I could loosen them and retorque, but not going to bother. There are no odd sounds when it's running, only when starting. Right now I'm looking at the ring gear closely all the way around to look for cracks.