Hi guys! I bought a 1981 F150 Custom and I am having a few issues that I can't figure out on my own.

The truck was originally a 300 six truck and has had a 302/C6 combo swapped into it. According to my research, the 302 in it has the stamp "E0AE D3C" with the date stamp of 1A9 meaning that it's a truck 302 that was made January 9th, 1981. The transmission appears to be the matching one as the code appears to be E1TP FA and some other ones I can't read because the tag is dirty.

Anyway, I bought it with an issue with the starter (which happens to be brand new). It appeared to be cranking VERY slow and at first, I thought the engine itself was nearly seized up.

Nope.

Turns out, the starter is grinding against the flywheel. I checked the part number of the starter (Carquest P3153) online and it APPEARS to be the correct starter. I tried installing a shim with no luck. The flywheel ended up eating up the front plate of the bendix behind the gear. I checked the flywheel and it appears to be ok with no teeth missing or no severe damage. I then did some research to discover that 80/81 was a changeover year for the 28oz/50oz flywheels. Would this change what starter is used? All sites appear to show that the starters changed in 2/81. I have to say I am a bit confused on the whole situation as I've never had this problem before with a starter.

Any ideas? Any help is appreciated!

 

Interesting.

I just went out and looked at my flexplate to find that it has a rectangular hole, indicating that it's most likely a 50oz flexplate. If so, this would explain the starter grinding because the starters from 1/81 abd earlier are a different part number from the 2/81 on ones. Would this seem right with it being a 1/9/81 engine? Or did some boob put the wrong flexplate onto a 28oz 302?

What confuses me is how close my engine's date stamp is to the changeover, so I am not 100% sure what it's supposed to be.

 

I think I just answered my own question. The website I was reading showed 2/81 was the changeover for the flexplate... turns out it's actually 1/81 so I do in fact have the wrong starter (guy installed the early one). Earlier starter's bendix comes out further than the later one does, therefore explains why the bendix is smashing into the flexplate.

 

I haven't heard of early vs late differences.........but definitely auto trans starters extend out an extra 5/16" further than those for manual trans vehicles.

 

Make sure they installed the sheetmetal plate between the engine and the transmission.

 

Spacer plate is definitely there. Even the whole thing confuses my Dad. Here is a picture of the starter hole and date codes of the engine. Ignore the metal shavings, that's from the front plate of the starter drive that is now gone...

 

If the rough measurements I just took are correct, it appears that the bendix comes out WAY too far for how close that flexplate is to the engine.

 

Anyone think they can shed some light on this? Can it be confirmed that 1/81 was the changeover to the 50oz flexplate and "later" style starter?

 

Welcome to FTE.

The first thing to jump out at me is the "A" in the casting code; if the casting was intended specifically for a truck, it would be a "T" and not an "A". This, combined with the casting date code, tells me it's originally from a 1981 sedan.

Below are the starter motor listings from the FoMoCo 1980/89 Light Truck Master Parts Catalog... pay attention to the stuff in green, that's for F-Series & Broncos with the 6cyl & Wheezer engines... I don't want to try and study all that to comprehend it to find what you're looking for, I'll leave that for you.

If you still had the original factory starter motor, the ID numbers on it would help you greatly (that's the stuff in the IDENT. column).

M/T = manual transmission A/T = automatic transmission
"Before x/y" and "After x/y" are vehicle manufacturing dates before or after such-n-such date.

Example nomenclature:
1980 = for 1980 models only
1980/ = 1980 through the end of the series (1989 as that's as far as this catalog goes)
1980/81 = for 1980 and 1981 models only

Maybe tomorrow I'll go look up the flex plate stuff.

As for the sedan-specific stuff, I may or may not have those catalogs.... maybe tomorrow...

 

Hmm... so it's a sedan engine. Interesting.

The P3153 starter I have does in fact have a Ford number stamped on the end that I can still read. It appears to be D2AF-11131-C.

 

Hmmm... the truck catalog says no such component exists... it goes from 11130 (housing assy) to 11134 (contact point kit).

Yes, once can purchase individual components to starter motors.

D2 is a 1972 design....

 

Ok, so since it's a sedan engine, it's most likely from an LTD or Thunderbird. And since it it appears to have a 50oz flexplate, I need the "later" starter like this one -

More Information for REMY 97132

Let's just hope some boob didn't put a 50oz flexplate on a 28oz engine as the LTD came with the AOD and not the C6, so they had to change the flexplate out.

 

Here are two pages with the starter motors for sedans:










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Here are the truck flexplates (Ford refers to them all as flywheels, you need to look at a/t and m/t) for the 302 and C6... it looks like there was one for 1980 (that uses a 1971 design) and another for 1981 thru 89 (and likely onward but this catalog doesn't go past 1989) that uses a 1981 design:








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Here are the flywheels for sedans with the 302 and C6... it looks like there was one for each year of 1980 (uses the same 1971 design, look at the part numbers), 1981 and 1982-89... note the 1981+ part numbers are different than those used in trucks:

 

Ok, great! It appears that I do need the later starter. As for the flexplate part, that's the confusing part.

I guess what I pretty much need to know is if I have the correct flexplate on this engine. Being a January 9th of 81 engine (1A9), I have no clue if it's the old 28oz balancing or the later 50oz balancing as all Google searches seem to fail on exactly when the switchover happened.

So once I figure that out, I will have to determine if the flexplate is correct for the 302/C6 combo installed.

 

Ok, it appears that the flywheel is most likely correct. I found this site (Ford Flywheels and Flexplates) that shows how to tell the difference between the balancers and I do have the wider 50oz one to match the flywheel. Therefore it's likely that the starter I have is wrong. So then this would mean that 1/81 was the switchover to the 50oz balancing on the "A" casting sedan engine. Wonder if the same goes for truck ones.

Thanks everyone for all the help!