my truck (info in sig) has been burning through starters. I have already replaced my starter twice sense I bought the truck 3 years ago, and it's alreading starting to go again after 8 months. The starter isn't engaging the flywheel all the way and the last time it was doing this it chewed up the teeth on the flywheel so bad I had to have that replaced as well. I need to replace the starter again, and was wondering is there were shims or something I should look for, or if this is a common issue. I'm getting tire of swapping out starters!

 

Where are you getting your starters from? I've heard of a lot people converting to a gear reduction starter. I don't have one on my truck, but have heard people talk good about them. You can get them from DB electrical http://www.dbelectrical.com/Items/sn...0%20%20SND0355 Maybe someone who has one on their truck will chime in and can give you a little more info on it.

 

I got the first starter from adavanced auto parts, and the second one from napa. I was just gonna swap out this one thats goin bad from napa cause it's still under warranty, but the gear reduction intrigues me. But will that solve my problem of it not engaging the sprocket?

 

I think you are in the same boat as me a couple months ago when I replaced my starter. I ended up getting my replacement from Napa with a lifetime warranty but it took 3 starters from them before I got one that worked. First one I got worked for a day and it seemed to not have much more cranking power than my old one that I replaced it with. Next morning go to start my truck and it cranked for sec and then just stopped. I could smell that it had fried. Took it back and got another one. Got the second one put in and cranked over great and truck started, but then I could hear a humming noise still. Shut the truck down immediately and I could hear the starter still spinning. Thankfully the drive gear retracted and was just spinning inside the starter. I rushed to remove my battery cables to get it to shut off. Let it sit for awhile and then touched the battery cable back onto the battery post to see what the starter would do. It immediately started to spin again, but the drive gear would not retract out to touch the flywheel. It would just spin inside the starter and would not shut-off unless power was cut from the battery. Took this one back and exchanged it for another. In went the third starter from Napa, and it’s been working great since then. I think it's a hit and miss with some of these starters from Napa, AutoZone, Advanced Auto, etc. Some turn out fine and work for awhile and others probably don't get a quality re-build and are destined to fail right away. [/FONT][/COLOR]

 

well my truck sounds like the shaft isn't extending all the way out for the gears to mesh and it's just grinding against the flywheel. I just replaced the flywheel from the second starter that screwed it up, and just want to get it fixed before I'm another 600 in the hole getting the flywheel replaced. Thanks for all input.