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85 F-150 300 manual. First time or two I try to start it makes a wheeeeee sound like the starter is turning but not engaging the flywheel. Works fine after that. Starter or flywheel? If starter, can you buy rebuild kits for it?
Also, the truck sits for weeks at a time but this didn't start to happen until right after I let my son borrow it.
Very well could be the starter drive has a bad area on it. These can be replaced easily. The fly wheel could have a bad spot also, but I would check the starter first. Pull it out and look at the drive the teeth are probably getting worn especially on the front edge.
Yeah, usually a bad bendix makes that sound...but since it does finally engage, maybe your starter bolts are a little loose. Hopefully, if the teeth are worn, it's on your starter drive instead of the flywheel.
tap the starter with a hammer, LIGHTLY!. Sometimes the bendix gets stuck if it sits for a while. Pull the starter off the truck, usually two bolts and one or two wires. look at the teeth. I had the same thing happen to me, just like F3Beam said. I crawled underneith and saw the the bolts were loose. I tightened them up and presto started right up.
When it does that, the problem usually is a worn bendix. When you think of the bendix (or starter gear) being worn, you would normally think of the teeth being bad.
In cases like this though, it's the one-way bearing inside the bendix that goes bad. It lets the starter drive the starter gear, but will not let the engine flywheel drive the starter(let's it freewheel that direction). That's so if you happen to hold the starter too long, and the engine has already started, it will not tear up the starter motor.
This bearing gets worn and sometimes will drive the gear, and sometimes won't. The bearing and gear are all one piece when you buy a replacement.