I keep having an issue with my starter having a really loud grinding noise like its not catching the flexplate. This happens every month or so and I cant seem to figure it out whats causing it. I had to replace my bellhousing because a starter hole was stripped and my last starter did the same thing after a month. I replaced the bellhousing with the exact bellhousing and installed a new starter for the c4 I had and it sounded good starting it, but the flexplate would smack the starter, so I took the 74 comet starter back and bought a 73 maverick starter and it sounded horrible trying to start the car and had the same issue with the flexplate hitting the starter. I grinded off the area on the starter were the flexplate kept hitting it and it worked fine, until today. Went to my meeting at work, went to get in the car and starter made a loud grinding noise like all the teeth broke or it was missing the teeth. I stopped for a second and tried it again, it started up fine. My question is what could have caused the flexplate to sit closer and hit the starter even with the correct 74 comet starter? Im buying a new starter today or tomorrow for the comet again since it sounded better than the maverick starter, but I know it will hit the starter, so I will eaither have to put some washers on the starter and space it out a little bit, or figure out whats really causing the issue. Could the torque converter drain plug not be in the hole correctly and is binding the flexplate in one area? i will have to start the car up this afternoon at home if it starts at work and look for some sort of wobble. Please give me your thoughts on this issue.
See thats what I was thinking, I'm just not sure how it got warped, unless something happened while I was removing the tranny to replace the bellhousing. The bellhousing I put on the 74 comet c4 came off of a 66 mustang c4, I compared the two bellhousing's and they were identical in everyway, except the threads were smaller where the small plate goes on at the bottom of the tranny.
Like you stated in the first post, the converter drain plug could be where it shouldn't, and tightning the 4 nuts would distort the flywheel. You can remove that small cover at the bottom and have somebody slowly turn the engine and see if the drain plug is in the bigger hole.
Didnt know if that were possible, but now I know it is. I will check it this afternoon or first thing in the morning and let everyone know what I find out.
Yes the flexplate would be warped if the drain plug is not in the hole, also as far as starters go there have been problems with auto parts stores giving people the wrong starters, there are 2 different starters. One is for an automatic and the other is for a manual transmission. I will refer you to this post http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=82550&highlight=automatic+manual+starters
