Grinding starter
 

Anybody know what would cause a starter to make a really harsh grinding sound? For about a week, my car would start poorly (and the grinding was heard every once and a while - usually when I first turned the key). Now all it does is grind and the engine doesn't t turn over.

Does this sound like a gear mating problem or is the starter just plain shot?

Sounds like you may have damage to starter drive and/or
flywheel teeth. Remove starter and inspect drive gear. rotate engine one full turn and look for damage on flywheel ( will
probably have wear on three equally spaced sections) Suggest you first rotate the engine about 1/4 turn by hand and attempt to restart. This will possibly confirm what I suspect. Good luck. Ron

How new is the starter install? Who did the work?
 

If the starter teeth were not aligned correctly with the flywheel teeth to "start" with, ;) then it may have caused premature bearing failure in the starter. Getting it just right with all the variables of flywheel and starter combos can be tricky.
But if you have a lot of miles on the install, this is an unlikely cause of the failure.

Thanks for the help guys!

I removed the starter a few minutes ago and found 2 things wrong - I think.

First, the solonoid assembly was loose. One screw was 1 turn from being tight and the other had just about fallen out. I could rock the assy. about 1/8" back and forth.

The second problem I believe is the bearings. When I turn the pinion drive gear, it is really rough with uneven resistance as I go around.

The ring gear looks fine, but the drive gear is showing slight wear. There was about a cc worth of metal scrapings captured in the grease in the housing.

I'm going to purchase a PA Performance or Ford mini starter and post how it goes.

Not a starter alignment expert, but here goes:
 

Make sure that the starter drive gear is fully engaged to the flywheel teeth depth wise, but NOT pressing "hard" against the flywheel at ANY point in the full flywheel rotation. Also, it needs to be properly aligned with the plane of the flywheel, so that the teeth fully engage. This may require washers for the mounting bolts, etc.....
Maybe you can see this thru a bottom access port in the bellhousing, as someone else rotates the motor by HAND, and maybe turns the starter motor over slowly, with the COIL wire pulled?

Be sure to fully support that car with jackstands, not just on a jack!! :CRY:

Just to be safer, I also usually lay a spare wheel/tire from my old 4 x 4 , on it's side, under the car, below the car frame, near me, just in case, it will stop the fall before you are crushed!

Just an afterthought !

Thanks BiB,

You're probably right that it was never aligned right in the first place. I only have 2300 miles on the car.

I see wear marks on the drive teeth that show the "plane" was off (the wear is tapered when viewing a tooth from the top) - like the drive gear was "angled" in and not mating in parallel.

Also, the shiny wear marks are about 2/3 of the depth of the teeth (which means the very tip of the teeth were actually a bit deeper. So, I think the depth was ok.

I do use jackstands under the front and even chock the back tires (front and back of tire). After hearing about so many accidents it just is not worth rushing or being cheap on equipment. I'm gald you made note of the safety issue. We all need to help keep each other alive.

Dang, you guys on this forum never cease to amaze me. This problem was diagnosed before I even took the starter off!

Hats off!

Well, I'm on the road again.

I had a couple of hours this weekend to put in a new starter.

Some advice for anybody purchasing a new starter (for a 460/514 anyway): Don't buy the Ford Motorsport version. It has a 1/4" male spade terminal for the ignition input. Cheesy. The old version with the threaded stud and ring terminal was superior. To make matters worse, the new unit ships with a harness - and it has the wrong terminals on it!!! What a waste of money. Shame on you Visteon. I have an electronics lab at my fingertips, so I can make my own quality, high-temp cables. For what I paid though, I should have received a "ready-to-go" harness. Even if the terminals to the relay are unkown, the cabling should at least mate to the starter on one end, right??? Just the engineer in me coming out - sorry.

On a positive note, I'm surprised how fast my car starts now. Just a quick "flick" of the ignition switch and it's up and running! I used to have to hold it for a full second or more. It now starts better than my STS (Take that GM!)

The old starter had some bearing damage which was slowing it down (and draining the heck out of my battery). The chowed pinion teeth didn't help much, either.

I've heard that extreme heat from the headers kills these things prematurely. Some guys actually fabricate heat shields.

Just some ideas...

Something to look out for. On two different Superformance cars I have driven the ignition switch (key part) has stuck in the start position. The first time it happened I barely noticed the sound of the starter grinding away over the loud exhaust. I thought it was a freak occurance but it happened again a few days later, then again on another friend's Superformance. I'm not saying that's what happened to your starter but it would explain all that damage for such short milage.
HTH,
Mike

WOW!

Thanks for the tip.

I wish the SPF dealers would frequent this forum. I would like their feedback on the problems common to many SPFs.

Maybe some of them have simple fixes.