I've burnt through a few starters over the past few years. I figured it was cuz they were AZ starters so this time I took it to a local rebuild guy. The teeth on the starte were pretty dinged up and the starter guy thinks I may have some flywheel issues. Two questions:

1. How do I check if I have flywheel issues? I'm guessing you turn the motor and look the flywheel teeth over real good.

2. If I do have issues, would you replace the entire flywheel or just the ring gear. The gear is $19 and a flywheel is $36. Hardly seems worth the time to replace just the gear. (BTW, I have zero clue how involved it would be to replace the gear.)

 

Where are you getting a $36 flywheel?
To replace the ring gear you must first remove the flywheel. Then you can cold chisel at one of the valleys or heat it up with a torch. It is only held on by shrinking to the O.D. of the flywheel. Heat the new one up a bit. Drop it on. Check to see if the ring has a direction. If both faces are flat then no. If one face has some bevel on the gear then that should go towards the starter.
Once the wheel is off you can check for wear. Any bluing because of heat or scoring/grooving will mean it needs to be resurfaced. Any cracks on the surface then chuck it.

 

$36.00 ? That would have to be for an aftermarket Automatic transmission flex plate (flywheel). Read made in China. The ring gears are not separate from them. The ring gear on a Manual Transmission flywheel is included or sold separate. $36.00 too cheap for a M/T flywheel.

 

My truck is an automatic. It's in my sig as C6.

$36 is what Autozone shows.

 

Ford did not sell the ring gear by itself for the A/T flywheel also known as a flexplate.

C5AZ-6375-D .. A/T Flywheel (flexplate) / Obsolete - Available NOS & from auto parts stores.

1965/67 F100/350 352 MX Cruise-O-Matic / 1968/76 F100/350 360/390 C6.

1965/67 352/390 Passenger Cars with FX & MX Cruise-O-Matic / 1967/71 390 Passenger Cars with C6.

 

Well then I guess that answers my original question.

 

Here's what I was listing as a $36 flywheel

Pioneer/Flywheel - Automatic Transmission FRA-212 at AutoZone.com

It says "Without Balance weight". WTH does that mean?

 

I guess that's why it's so cheap.

Or may be it don't need to be since the TQ converter is.

May be look for others that are and go with a balanced one.

You'll have slide the tranny back enough to separate the two and remove the fly wheel.
Orich

 

Well, I did a bit of searching and everyone (rockauto, Oreilly, SummitRacing, etc.) sells this flywheel/flexplate and list it as the replacement for Ford part # (what NumDum listed). If you do a search on the Ford part # you get this AZ part.

So does anyone know what the implications of "Without Balance Weight" might be? Is it eventually gonna need to be balanced? Does it not have one cuz it's already perfectly balanced? Or is it like orich says there that it doesn't need one cuz the TQ is balanced?

 

For anyone who gives a rats. I asked AZ and here was their response:

"The Pioneer/Flywheel - Automatic Transmission (part # Pioneer FRA-212) would be the standard replacement and would not require any additional balancers, unless the vehicles transmission torque converter has been upgraded to a performance converter."