I am hoping someone can help me out...I have an 87 F150 that was my Father In Laws until he passed away a year ago. It has 115,000 miles and sat a lot the last 2 years...here are the things that have happened...
1. When I got the truck, it would grind when I tried to start it. Turned out, the starter was loose so I tightened the 2 bolts and it started good for a couple of weeks. Then it started grinding again...
2. Bought another starter, installed it and it started fine for a couple of weeks...then started grinding again. Took the starter off, took it to Advance to have it checked, said it was fine. Put the starter back on and it started right up. Worked for a couple of weeks and all the sudden started grinding and spinning. Had to be towed home. Decided to try one more starter...installed it and it started like a new truck! Worked great for 3 weeks. Got in it yesterday to come home from work and all the starter would is spin...had to have it towed home again...I have heard talk that sometimes shims/spacers are needed when installing starters so the starter teeth done go past the flywheel teeth when engaged. Could my problem be I need to add a shim or washer to the 2 bolts when installing the starter? Since this truck had a lot of sentimental value, I would really like to be able to drive it for a while. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

Starters come in 2 flavors.

One for automatics, another for standard transmissions.

Check the flex plate for ground down, damaged teeth.

 

It's an automatic. I took pictures of the flexplate teeth the last time I had the starter off and showed them to a friend who used to be a mechanic. He said they look good to him. What realky puzzles me is it starts great for a couple of weeks and then with no warning at all, I get in it to start it and it just spins...

 

I would pull starter and rotate engine over one complete revolution by hand and make sure there is not a bad spot in flex plate ring gear. It may be hitting this one bad spot just every so often. Just a thought

 

I am going to try that today and see how they look...

 

Have a look at this for comparison:

http://www.bcbroncos.com/ford%20starters.pdf