Never ending problems! Everyone is saying I should just set fire to this thing, haha. Since I am too stubborn to give up on it, i will be working on a new project - Ring Gear Flywheel!
I tried starting up the boat today and after the 2nd attempt I started getting a nasty grinding sound. I took the starter out to made sure the bendix was good, put it back and still got the grinding. So, I got the newer starter and I got the same sound. I thought the bendix wasn't engaging the flywheel. Turns out I was right, because the flywheel's teeth were grinding off. I manually cranked the engine and inspected about 1/2 the teeth. It seems like for a while the bendix was grinding only the front half of the each tooth - i'm guessing the rest are like this.
Time for a new ring gear flywheel.
Is this something I could do myself? I know I can take the tranny off without removing the engine block- I read csuggs when he changed the fly damper plate. My concern is the difficulty of switching out the ring gear flywheel - is it possible for me to do that or is that a job for a shop?
Or could I just flip the ring gear?