noisy starter issues

I fired up the Magic Bus after a 7 month idle time doing body work.. It was noisy as it was when I parked it.. got it started but it made some terrible noises and seemed to be struggling/grunting/binding and making some very loud undesirable noises..

Took the starter to a local rebuilder/friend of mine...he said only the bendix/drive was so slightly worn but was other wise fine..

Put it on and it will crank at times, but is quite loud and binds and then quits..

Kinda putting out a feeler here for ideas...

I previously had the flywheel out and had it resurfaced when I put the clutch in...the teeth at the time looked ok...

I cant quite figure out what to do with it..you cant shim it and it is just a standard 3 bolt ford starter..200 six with a 3speed manual tranny

The only real difference between then and now is its about 40 degrees and it was probably 80 before when I was driving it around a little

I want to give this a partial update, after installing and removing the starter several times and a lot of frustration I replaced all the battery/starter cables and the solenoid, I also added a ground strap between the engine and the doghouse.

It will start now but still sounds noisy, after comparing it to another flywheel with a starter ring on it I believe the teeth to be worn, kind of sharp or pointy would be the best description, hence I believe the noise.

I believe the issue of not turning at times was a ground/bad connection/bad cables.

I will update this again if I ever get around to replacing the starter ring...thats gotta wait until after paint!

Well I couldnt wait till after paint..I pulled the tranny to get to the flywheel, I put a new ring on it, I bought a different remanufactured starter from orielys. In addition to replacing all the cables and a new starter solenoid it now starts great. I pretty sure that the flywheel ring was the problem, but it could have been the starter as well?

Like everything else on this van it was just worn out. Then guess what? The rear main seal starts leaking! Awesome!

My dad passed away over 10 years ago, His best buddy at the time has been helping me alot, getting right under there and grunting and gittin greasy.

To give you and idea of what he thought of him, he was the only non family member to have ever been given the key to the shop, says alot.

I bought it at Napa 28.50

Old flywheel ring



New one. Look how much longer the teeth are

Nice! My starter has trouble engaging the flywheel at times. I flipped the ring gear to get access to the nicer side of teeth, but it might be time to get one of those fancy new ones.

Ya I forgot to mention mine had already been flipped prior to me buying it.

Take the starter off. MUCH quieter that way.

Good job finding/fixing the problem.
I always preferred the Ford/Mopar direct bolt on to the Chevy shimmed stuff. To my mind, they just couldn't get the tolerances right!