Ok, I had a wringing/grinding sound happening a few months ago. Talked to a ton of people and they said it was probably a) bad solenoid causing the bendix(sp?) not to kick out, or b) something wrong with the bendix(sp?) itself only kicking out some of the time.
Long story short I replaced the starter for +/- $200 (I forget what it actually was with the core charge). Well about a month ago it started doing it again, but there was no escalation, it was there one day and the next day it took 7 attempts to get it started. It took me about a week to pull the starter and check it out, and the teeth on the starter look like crap. Basically its acting like a really expensive angle grinder.
Mind you there are no shims on this starter, nor were there any on the OEM starter that I replaced initially. I also had a buddy mark the flywheel with some chalk on all 4 spots that looked like they had been affected while I was turning the engine via the bolt on the harmonic balancer (that's fun, ever try to turn a diesel over by hand???).
I then went underneath and looked at the flywheel teeth myself while he turned the engine over, and suprisingly the teeth on the flywheel do not look that bad at all. It looks like a tiny bit of grinding on the front of the flywheel (like an aggressive sandpaper basically, so not much) and the insides of the flywheel teeth don't look bad either. No teeth on the flywheel were missing, or blunted, etc.
The starter teeth are absolutely shot, I think there's one good one left out of 6. The parts store is going to comp the starter for me if I order a flywheel. My question though, is this a flywheel problem? Does the flywheel actually turn (even slightly) if the engine is not turning at all? When I hit the ignition I get a grinding/wringing sound (sometimes), and sometimes it will start. If it grinds/wrings then it takes doing that several times to get it to start. So basically can the flywheel turn if the engine is not? Because if the starter is just grinding, it's not turning the flywheel enough to turn the engine, yet somehow it ends up starting eventually just like normal.
Long story short I replaced the starter for +/- $200 (I forget what it actually was with the core charge). Well about a month ago it started doing it again, but there was no escalation, it was there one day and the next day it took 7 attempts to get it started. It took me about a week to pull the starter and check it out, and the teeth on the starter look like crap. Basically its acting like a really expensive angle grinder.
Mind you there are no shims on this starter, nor were there any on the OEM starter that I replaced initially. I also had a buddy mark the flywheel with some chalk on all 4 spots that looked like they had been affected while I was turning the engine via the bolt on the harmonic balancer (that's fun, ever try to turn a diesel over by hand???).
I then went underneath and looked at the flywheel teeth myself while he turned the engine over, and suprisingly the teeth on the flywheel do not look that bad at all. It looks like a tiny bit of grinding on the front of the flywheel (like an aggressive sandpaper basically, so not much) and the insides of the flywheel teeth don't look bad either. No teeth on the flywheel were missing, or blunted, etc.
The starter teeth are absolutely shot, I think there's one good one left out of 6. The parts store is going to comp the starter for me if I order a flywheel. My question though, is this a flywheel problem? Does the flywheel actually turn (even slightly) if the engine is not turning at all? When I hit the ignition I get a grinding/wringing sound (sometimes), and sometimes it will start. If it grinds/wrings then it takes doing that several times to get it to start. So basically can the flywheel turn if the engine is not? Because if the starter is just grinding, it's not turning the flywheel enough to turn the engine, yet somehow it ends up starting eventually just like normal.
