Tilton Starter Blues

[Eljaro]

Since I had my new Pond sideoiler block my starter has been doing strange noises. Some days ago the starter would turn but not move the flyingwheel and it took me some pushing to get the pinion engaged to the flywheel and start the car.
I removed the starter and the pinion is very much eaten up. The teeth on the flywheel do not look very healthy but have enough depth left.
With the new block and the correct aligning of the gearbox shaft apparently the teeth have moved away from each other. I fixed it with a new pinioin and bringing it closer to the flywheel. It works perfectly and very quiet now.

Since I have the old flywheel I reproduced on the bench the starter/flywheel setup and calculated that a 0.015 end play pinion/flywheel is 0.050 radial play on the large gear which engages with the starter motor pinion.
Remove the starter flange and the drive unit, mount on the engine and with some type of marker adhered to the outer side of the large gear ( I used an adhesive paper strip with a 0.050 wide mark). Another paper on the flange had a pointer mark.Lock then pinion gear in the extended position, turn the large gear and see what you get.I had 0.200 play.
In order to achieve the correct end play I had to mount the starter flange on the lathe excentrically ( a 3 mm thick aluminum plate under one of the chuck arms) in order to remove more aluminum on the side closer to the block off the collar which fits into the bellhousing plate. Aditional to that I had< to elongate the three mount holes enough to get the starter moved towards the engine and eventually I got the desired 0.05 radial play. I also adjusted the distance in retracted mode between flywheel/starter by turning down the flange on the face where it meets the bellhousing cover.That one was too large also.
With this I want to call on all of you that the starter mounting is not as simple as bolting on and forget. I almost destroyed my new aluminum flywheel bacause of not aligning the starter correctly. Beware.