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Ordered a new starter....problems

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I have been running a high-torque starter for the last 4 years and love the ability of the gear reduction to turn my engine over. The last year or so, I have found that about every 20 cranks or so, I was missing a start, like I had broken some teeth on the ring gear. Now, when I installed the starter, the ring gear was in great shape. When I pulled the flywheel recently to install a new aluminum flywheel with new ring gear (Fidanza from TSI Automotive), I noticed that I hadn't chipped off any gears neither had the ring gear shifted. I had sheared away about 20% of my ring gear tips to the point that I would reach a low spot about that twentieth crank and go nowhere.
I have some thoughts on that. Either my starter motor isn't throwing out as far as it should (the gear is worn) or all that starter usage to turn over the crank while establishing TDC, cam setup, valve lash, etc. flat wore everything out. I would seriously recommend that one not use their starter for anything but starting their engine...IMHO.

Anyway, the only people that had a new gear-reduction starter in stock was Moss. I ordered it with blue label delivery and got it in today. Lifting the UPS box I noticed, "Dang, this thing is heavy!" Sure was. It was a rebuilt Lucas monster! Moss apologized profusely and is sending another. Another weekend without the engine in the car. (Yeah, I know, I can install it afterwards but I don't really want to.)
 
Tried to in stall the tranny after I installed the motor in my six. Couldn't get them to mate up no matter what I did and how hard I worked it. Turned out I had forgot I installed my starter and the bolt heads where between them!!!
ARG!!!
 
Bill, I have done a lot of work on high horsepower engines over the years and have yet to see a starter drive damage the ring gear of a flywheel, no matter how much we turned it over for setups. I've even smoked a starter to a crisp setting up a newly built 12 to 1 compression drag prepped GTO in 1970 and the flywheel was perfect. Believe me I know because the driver blew two clutches at the strip. Luckily you could pull the tranny in about 30 minutes, even when hot. I saw far more of that flywheel than I needed to.

In any case, are you sure that the ring gear is going to be OK for the future, before you put everything back in the car? I'd hate to see you have to pull it again in six months because the teeth wore down even further, even if it means that you are delayed a week or two at this time.
 
isn't it just an isuzu trooper starter? or at least that is one of the options.

during research, i found out that the ring gear is beveled on one side and not the other. also, the lucas starter moves its gear towards the engine, while new starters push towards the tranny, so install your ring gear backwards. third, the old starters had beveled edges to match the ring gears, and the new ones don't. this means both gears will have a harder time missing each other with tooth damage resulting over time.

overall, this new starter system seems to have downsides and you seem to be the first one to report it.

so...how can we solve the problem? manually beveling the new starter gears? flipping our ring gears around? buying new ring gears every 1000 starts?
 
Look carefully at the pinion gear of any starter drive. I work for an electrical remanufacturer, and have NEVER seen a starter pinion gear that wasn't beveled. If you have one that isn't beveled, I'd like to see a picture of it and the starter it came out of.

I can understand the problem of the gear reduction starter coming in from the other direction causing problems with engagement, as the ring gear is oriented the wrong way. But, from all that I've seen and read about, this almost seems to be a non-issue. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps the pinion gear on the the original gear reduction starter might have been the wrong one. Those Japanese starters have a slew of different size and tooth count pinions that can be put on any given shaft.
 
I don't know about TR gear-reduction starters but many hotrodders have discovered that many of the "brand name" gear reduction starters sold in the aftermarket are poor quality Chinese knock-offs that just don't work very well.

They LOOK the same but aren't.

Many guys have found that they work best when deposited in the bottom of the nearest trash can and replaced with genuine Denso or Hitachi starters. There's even a outfit that's building US made GR starters for the aftermarket...a little more $$$ than the Japanese units but they claim much better quality...
 
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