Hi everyone,

I have an issue with the starter on my 1994 Ford Ranger XL Supercab. The starter was making a weird noise when starting the engine for about a week. Yesterday the starter stopped turning the engine over but still made whirring noises. I assumed it had a bad wire or an alignment issue. Well it turned out the upper bolt on the starter was loose and the shim that goes around the transmission/starter was bent outward on the right side of the starter. I used pliers to bend the shim back and tightened the bolts down. Same problem.

So I decided to remove the starter to check it. Immediately the problem became clear as you can see in the pics below the teeth are worn off the starter drive. Thus it needs replaced. My main concern is the wear on the ringgear. Since the shim was bent out and the bolt loose the starter wasn't lined up properly and wasn't engaging the ringgear properly. This caused wear on the ringgear. I have the pics below.

Can someone tell me if the ringgear is still good if I put in a new starter?

 

Welcome to the site..

From here and what we/I can see, the wear doesn't too bad on the flywheel. Try and use a small file, die grinder/dremel or ? and clean up the teeth from the old drive running against and on top of the teeth all the way around so not to add any undue stress on the new starter/drive. Make sure the engine separator/dust plate is cleaned since it centers/aligns the starter..