Hey guys, so here's my problem that's leaving me scratching my head. I'm on my 3rd starter in 2 months. At the end of the last one I noticed my flywheel teeth were getting chipped and torn up. Well the other day I tried to start it and the starter didn't have any teeth on the fly wheel left to even try to grip to. So I just finished changing out the flywheel and on my third startup, maybe fourth, the starter did the thing it was doing on the first one! Which was, I would crank the engine and the starter would seemingly hit a dead spot and just stop all together, then I try to do it again and it makes an awful grinding noise while it struggles to turn the engine until it finally catches and fires up. So my best guess at what is happening is that the starter gear doesn't mesh up with the ring gear properly and when it gets to a point it hits tooth to tooth and freezes right there. I have no idea what would cause this to happen though. I've tried starter spacers/shims to no avail, didn't really expect it to help being that it doesn't seem like a depth issue rather than a gear tooth ratio issue. Are there different starters for manual and auto transmissions? Is it possible I need a high torque starter? Let me know your guys thoughts because I'm having a heck of a time with my girl right now. She's a 1978 f150 300 (it's had some work) bored out 30 over 4 barrel carb and intake, manual transmission, 2wd. Thanks everyone!

 

To add some info.
Yes there are different starters for auto an manual in the 300. Hopefully its an issue as simple as the guy at the parts counter not clicking all the options.


but if its not, the below questions may help to diagnose.
Are the 3 starters the same type form the same store?
Are they remanufactured?
Are you sure your bendix gear is fully extending?


I only ask because I have run into an issue on other vehicles where the reman job didn't rebuild/replace the bendix. This means the starter will bench test fine, but under load the bendix gear will just give up. my 2C


this thread has some info not 300 but same idea:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-starters.html

 

I agree. Wrong starter or flywheel for the application.

 

I gave up on "lifetime warranty" starters from the chain stores and went to a Power Master and was done with it. Working for 10 years.

 

I called advanced auto and had them check the part numbers of what I bought and what the correct starter is. Looks like they did sell me the wrong starter, the one I bought doesn't specifically say weather it's for manual or auto but the other one does. So we'll see how this works!

 

glad you found the answer. For the 300 its not exactly straight forward like with a 351. I have found i go to napa and federated auto just because their counter guys are aloder than me and usually catch my mistakes. If its as simple as the wromg one the only other thing i can think of is that long pulls like the 300 often rest in the same spot on each restart. So the 3 bad starters may have already torn away at some teeth. Let us kniw how it goes.

Im a sucker for threads that have a happy ending.