Huh. Bad starter?
I've got a 351w from a 1997 F250 mated to a M5R2 out of a, i believe, 1996 F150.
Flywheel should be same as motor. ended up using a shifter and shifter stub out of a 1998 F150, M5R1 trans. Works, so not knocking it.
Problem we're having is starters. There is a separator plate between bell housing and engine block, and the guy at the shop ended up using an additional shim-type spacer between the starter and the housing. I should have taken pictures of the damage to the starter gear when i was there, but i forgot. This is apparently the second starter they've gone through. Is the most likely option that the starters were just bad? They got them from O`Riley's, and i can't imagine two are bad brand new out of the box. It seems to me that the starter pinion isn't fully disengaging from the flywheel after cranking.
Transmission guy swears it can't possibly be that the pinion on the starter is staying interfaced with the flywheel due to not enough spacer and that the starters themselves had to be faulty, but that doesn't jive with what i saw.
Trust the dude with 25+ yrs experience rebuilding and dealing with transmission issues as a profession, or contradict his assessment based on my observations and intuition based on apparent damage on the pinion gear?
Included picture looks exactly like the damage i witnessed at the shop.
Sorry to zombie a post, but the issue seemed similar to my situation and i didn't want to arbitrarily create a new thread when it already is discussed elsewhere.