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starter motor pinion gear -- 9 or 10 teeth?

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Keith_M

Keith_M

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I have a late model 1275 cc (the engine number starts with 12V) engine in my bugeye. The starter motor works fine except that it doesn't appear to engage the ring gear smoothly. There's a lot of grinding and bad noises until the engine starts. The bendix mechanism slides easily, and the starter turns just fine; it just makes way too much noise.

I pulled the starter motor today, and there are lot of metal filings in the bell housing and on the ring gear. The starter has 9 teeth on the pinion gear, and I notice that Moss sells pinion gears with 10 teeth for sprites, so it seems possible that my ring gear is meant to have a 10 tooth pinion gear. I'm not sure where the starter motor is from; it was probably not original to that engine.

My question is two fold:
First, is it possible that I need a 10 tooth pinion?

Second, how does one remove the pinion gear from the starter? It looks like there's a clip ring at the end, but it's buried in a thick washer. Do I need some sort of press to move the washer out of the way?

Keith
 
Keith,
Pony up and get a refurb unit rather than trying to change out the pinion gear. Starters are cheap. If you did have an incorrect pinion, it may be that you've chewed up the ring gear on the flywheel. IF so, possible to replace the ring gear at home with an over and a freezer. Otherwise a change to a Gear Reduction Starter with clockable mounting plate. Note: Not all GR Starters are equal, the cheap ones do not have this feature but the GE Starter engages from the other side of the Ring Geqr. Where to teeth aren't all chewed up.
 
Jim_Gruber said:
Keith,
Pony up and get a refurb unit rather than trying to change out the pinion gear. Starters are cheap. If you did have an incorrect pinion, it may be that you've chewed up the ring gear on the flywheel. IF so, possible to replace the ring gear at home with an over and a freezer. Otherwise a change to a Gear Reduction Starter with clockable mounting plate. Note: Not all GR Starters are equal, the cheap ones do not have this feature but the GE Starter engages from the other side of the Ring Geqr. Where to teeth aren't all chewed up.
Click to expand...

I was hoping to fix the starter I have, but you're probably right; it's not worth the time or trouble. If I'm going to replace, I'll probably go for the GR starter. My wife drives the car more than me, so it's probably good to make it as easy to start as possible. My ring gear doesn't look too badly chewed up from what I can see through the starter hole in the housing.

The GR starter from Moss appears to have 3 holes on the mounting plate, so it's at least somewhat adjustable. Do you (or anyone else) know of other options?

Keith
 
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