Starter missing flywheel

T

The "A" Team

Member
Hi everyone,

I just recently put my father's 1930 Model A Coupe back together after he took it apart to restore it around 20 years ago and never finished. Everything seems to be running pretty well after reinstalling the engine, transmission, etc., but the only thing I'm noticing is that the starter sometimes seems to miss the flywheel on startup. It doesn't do it every time, but sometimes when I press on the "button" it whirs really fast like a drill, which tells me it's not engaged to the flywheel. After a couple of times of pressing the button, it does engage the flywheel and pretty much starts right up. Is this normal, or does something need to be adjusted?

Thanks as always.

John
 
The Model A engine tends to stop at one or two places on the flywheel over and over again. Naturally, the ring gear teeth in this area get chewed up by the Bendix drive more than the rest of the almost unused teeth. 'Sorry. No easy cure. The only fix is to replace the ring gear. Some guys just heat the ring gear and rotate it a couple inches so that fresh teeth now engage with the starter drive. But occasionally the engine will stop at a different place and may encounter the old ground down teeth = Problem reoccurs. For all the work required to heat and move the gear, why not just install a new ring gear so that there will never be a problem like this again in your lifetime?
In the meantime, you can "cheat" a little and stall the engine by slowly letting out the clutch in gear while holding the brake pedal down. This will force the engine to stop in an unnatural place where the ring gear teeth will still be good. Be sure to turn off the ignition switch afterwards! This is only a stop gap measure to make life tolerable until you can replace the ring gear. If necessary, you can use the hand crank to turn the flywheel a couple degrees to reach unused/unabused teeth on the ring gear. But that gets old FAST!!! :)
Marshall
 
Last edited:
Take the spark plugs out and then remove the starter . Get a comely assistant or wife/girlfriend and get her to slowly rotate the engine on the crank handle . Shine a flashlight on the ring to see the ring gear state of health . With the starter out check the free sliding motion of the bendix helix to see if any binding .

John in same place same weather .
 
Mine does the same thing occasionally. I just hit the button a second time and she fires right up. Doesn't seem to hurt anything, I think it is just the starter gets hung up every so often. At least that is my story and I am sticking too it.

Mike
 
If you check out the ring gear and find it good, try this:


If someone used grease or a heavy oil like 600W or even 40 W on starter Bendix, the gear will not engage and starter will just spin.


The colder the temperature the worse the problem.


If "spiral" is rusty the problem will be worse.


Thoroughly clean the bendix with brake cleaner or lacquer thinner. Be sure all grease is removed from the "Spirals" especially.


Then lube with thin oil like "three in one" or sewing machine oil.
 
Last edited:
If it is a replacement starter ring gear, pull the starter and see if it is walking forward. The reproductions sometimes do not fit tight. When the starter engages it wants to pull the ring gear forward away from the stop. When installing a new ring gear. I always have them pinned. You can tap it back into place by rotating the engine. It will hold for a while.

Henry should have designed it so that the starter pulls it against the stop, not away from it.

Tom Endy
 
The ring gear and bendix gear all looked good when I reassembled the engine, with no worn or missing teeth. After it spins once or twice, it does fall into place back into the gear, so I was thinking it was moving away like Tom said.

I'll pull the starter off and inspect all the pieces, and even clean it up and oil it like Benson said.
 
Are you using an original style Bendix or one of those awful modern things that don't fully engage the ring gear. They will chew up the teeth. Don't ask how I know.
Also, if the teeth are chewed up, they can put so much side load on the pinion that the starter shaft will bend. I've seen that on even the stronger 5/8" shafts.
 
Where I live the farmers will always park their trucks on the top of a hill.

I am going to go with what Benson said.
 
Does it do it when the engine is warm? Or only when it's been sitting, like overnight? If the latter, it's probably the spiral on the bendix hanging up as Benson suggsted. An old trick is, when you shut the engine off, bump the starter button to engage the bendix, then it's already engaged the next time you start the engine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top