Hey All,
Was wondering if someone could help me solve this starter issue with my wife's 96 ford explorer. it has the 4.0L V6 in it. she called me at work one day and said her truck would not start, it was making a wierd clunking noise. when i got home and tried it the starter was making the sound that is was bound up from maybe a flat spot in the brushes, took my hammer and whacked the starter and it still did not work. figured time for a new starter with 190k miles on it. next morning woke up and crawled underneath and took out the starter, fun is.. got it out and something was missing. the nosecone where the other side of the bendix rides in was missing. i reached in the housing and pulled out the broken off nose cone. no more pieces in it, it broke off clean. off to pep boys i go and got a new starter for it. installed it, and went to start it and no go. starter just engages but no turning over. every now and then i think it may be hitting the flywheel and getting bound? i took the starter out and put the jumper cables on it and it works just fine out of the vehicle, put it back in and nope, dont want to spin the motor over. i manually turned the engine over a couple of times, it turns over freely. does this starter need a shim maybe? anyone got any advice please? thanks...

 

You could try to move the starter away from the flexplate by moving it away from the engine before you tighten the bolts. You could also have a bent flexplate.

 

Dude, clean your battery terminals. Sounds like you are not getting enough juice to the starter to make it work.