Soul crushed and seeking advice on starting problems

[TacoBelleGirl]

Hey all!

This is my first post here and sadly it's not a particularly happy one.
I have a 1991 Ranger 4.0 with a 5 speed manual that I bought off of a friend and actually taught myself how to drive stick with.
Attacked is a picture of the rig.

Unfortunately I have had a lot of problems with the old girl in regards to starting.
When I bought the truck it would start just fine until it got hot and then would just sit there and crank over.
Being naive I tried spraying starting fluid into the intake when it did this, which did seem to get it to start however I never actually proved that it was fueling and not spark.

I drove it like that for a bit until the flywheel ring gear got destroyed as pictured below (and yes it had a massive PS fluid leak plus a few others that are still there).

When the flywheel gave out I made the choice to buy some more tools, a new flywheel, and ultimately replaced it while the truck was parked in my apartment's parking complex.
This worked great for almost exactly one month before damage appeared in the new flywheel and I am now back in the same boat as before. The truck was working great and I wasn't having issues starting after all the work for 2 or 3 weeks but then it got worse and it started struggling to start even when cold (and hot as before).

Being desperate without another rig at the time I did continue to spray starting fluid into it as an attempt which I thought was helping it start, but my friend actually looked at it with me and we determined that it was having inconstant spark when attempting to start. We checked the ohms on the coil and they seem to be good, plus spark was good once it started and it ran smoothly with plenty of power.
At this point the truck is parked once again with a damaged ringear unable to crank over.

So I have multiple things on mind with this post.
1. What may have caused that damage twice in such a short amount of time? Is that possibly from misuse of starting fluid?
2. I really would like some advice and opinions on how to proceed.

In terms of the spark problem the truck has new plugs and wires though I haven't replaced the coil since the ohms were good and it ran great once started.
Based on my research I thought the PIP or ICM so I did the money wasting option of replacing both with no luck.
Now at this point I am thinking it might be an interference problem with the PIP signal as I have realized that with the starter spinning but not engaged with the flywheel (and thus no rotation) the tach actually still moves and when I just looked at it jumped to 1k RPMs while the engine literally wasn't even turning over.

I feel pretty defeated and bummed out about how everything has gone here so I'm really hoping for some advice on how I should proceed.

Before anyone asks yes I have changed the starter and the fender-mounted solenoid (both before and after the flywheel problems the first time). The spacer between the transmission and the ring gear is in place and does appear to be in one piece. Not sure if it's super relevant here but it is the Mazda M5R1 transmission.

Thank you for your time reading my post here and I really appreciate any direction that is given. I'd hate to give up on the truck and would love to get it working reliably as it's brought a lot of smiles to my face.

 

[2011Supercab]

With the amount of dirt and grime around the hole, that tells me the starter wasn't bolted down tight.

My guess is the bolts holding the starter on are to long and bottoming out.

 

[SenorNoob]

^That makes sense to me.

As for interference, have you checked the length of the wiring? What about bad ground to the engine block? That could cause ALL kinds of problems.

 

[rumblecloud]

With the amount of dirt and grime around the hole, that tells me the starter wasn't bolted down tight.

My guess is the bolts holding the starter on are to long and bottoming out.

Great observation
That whole area obviously needs to be crud free before re-installing. If it's just grease and oil easy peazy....if it's crusty means it has been that way for awhile and will require a bit more effort.

 

[SenorNoob]

When cleaning it don't forget about the surface of the starter too!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I’m going to agree that the starter isn’t sitting tight or shifting. Somewhat common problem on older rigs. Something to be mindful of.

Electrical issues are also common. I’ve been a victim of this and I do electrical work. Had the ground cable rot apart inside the insulation without visible signs of a problem. I was fighting no-start/hard start and a host of crazy electrical issues and just happened to get curious as to why the main ground off the battery sounded crunchy when flexed. Skinned some insulation and junk. Ever since then I don’t play, either whenever I have things torn apart anyway for something or I start having electrical issues, I make up new cables out of 4 gauge welding cable. Ground and hot to starter, ground to frame, and I replace the dinky ground to the core support with 4 gauge. Use No-Alox (hardware store electrical section) or dielectric grease on things.

For the no-start, I’d suspect a fueling problem. Check the vacuum line of the fuel pressure regulator for fuel, it shouldn’t have any. If it does, the regulator is bad for sure. Also if you can, check the fuel pressure at the rail. No hot start can often be low fuel pressure vaporizing fuel in the rail which causes no start. These older trucks you can cycle the key a couple times and push fresh fuel into the rail to try to eliminate that. If the pump is weak or the filter is plugged this won’t really help though.

Another huge problem with these older trucks is the capacitors in the computer pop and can cause all sorts of issues. It’s an easy thing to check, pull the battery cables and pull the computer (passenger side kick panel). Remove the cover on the computer and look. Blown capacitors sometimes are physically broken but will always stain the board under them. The corrosive juice in them can also burn out other components on the board.