starter spins then....clank!

[kimcrwbr1]

Pull the starter and spin it with a set of jumper cables be sure and hold it down good with your foot if its good it will have alot of torque. If it spins good maybe the start solenoid has bad contacts just run the posative side of the jumper cable from the battery to the starter side of the start solenoid and see if it keeps spinning. Then turn the ignition switch on and bypass the solenoid again and see if she fires off. Is the battery fully charged, are the battery cables and connections clean and tight, sand all grounds metal to metal, bend the cables end to end for weak spots, Pull the spark plugs and see if it spins good it is a non interference engine I believe, but it has timing gears and virtually never skips time there is no chain and gets tons of oil. There is a possibility of a hydro lock two ways if the float is stuck open it can lock with fuel or if a cracked or leaky head gasket is letting large amounts of water in a cylinder it will lock up also. To check the timing gears pull the distributor cap and turn the crank clockwise until the rotor spins and line up the timing marks then spin it slowly backwards until the rotor turns there should only be a couple degrees movement max.

 

[bottlefed281]

The trans. That's in the truck says E57A on the tag. Tried looking it up and can't find nothing
Have another trans. That says E47A on the tag. ???? Tryin to fig. Out what cobbled mess I bought here lol

 

[Wa11banger]

well the good thing is you have identified that it isnt an internal engine problem That is good news and progress

 

[WesTN]

Your problem sounds like one I had a while back. The stock starter for 2.8's has 9 teeth and barely makes contact with the flywheel. If the starter was ever slightly loose and the teeth lost a tiny bit of contact future start attempts sound like grinding gears with no engine turn. The fix: replace the starter drive with one from an 85-90 Escort with 1.9L. The new drive will have 10 teeth and much better flywheel contact. $10ish at RockAuto.

 

[enginepaul]

The e4 is 1984, the e5 is 1995 (the year made); either would work BUT be careful, I found that the shifters were changed somewhere during production and are not always interchangeable.

There is much on the starters here - do a search. I had problems with Chinese flywheels but now I have one (still China) that works with the original starter gear.

The escort starter gear got me through until I had to swap transmissions and a new flywheel so that escort gear is something to look at.

The Ford starters of this style last a very longtime. I only needed two or three in a Pinto (same starter as the Ranger) that ran 240,000 miles mostly for deliveries in San Francisco with lots of starts and stops.

 

[wildbill23c]

Still fn with this damn thing..got me to the point to bout give up.
Tried a min ago and let the starter get to where it makes the clank noise.
Got under the truck and looked the bendix is stuck in the out posistion against the flywheel.
Kinda looks like its not even sittin to where it would go in between the teeth of the flywheel.
Like its jus barely catchin in the teeth and riding on the outside of flywheel teeth.
To me looks like the starter needs to set in closer torward the flywheel.

Check your starter bolts, possibly buy new ones. I replaced mine about a month ago after having similar problems where the starter would slowly back away from the flywheel enough to cause a grinding noise. Since I replaced the bolts I haven't had to crawl under and re-align the starter and I was able to remove the shims that I thought it needed. Make sure when you put the bolts in, to either put a little loc-tite on the threads or use lock washers, or both as I did. Seems like these bolts like to come lose.

 

[drgrcr]

There are 2 starters one for a manual trans and one for a auto, the difference is the number of teeth on the bendix drive. The wrong starter will cause what you are describing.

 

[dangerranger83]

On my old 2.8, I ran an auto starter on a manual transmission and never had a problem.

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