Starter Flywheel Engagement Woes

[drumad]

First a background of my set up:

1996 m52b28 into a 1991 318i sedan
g240 from my 1991 318i
m20 flywheel lightened (I bought this from a jy, so it's possible it's not right)
m20 starter, using a remanufactured one, replaced yesterday thinking it was my solenoid

I can turn the crank. With car in gear, the tranny output shaft spins as well (drive shaft is NOT installed). No grinding or anything when I turn the crank.

Problem:
While trying to figure out how to wire the starter, I finally figure out how to engage the solenoid (thanks to Luke btw). When I do get the solenoid to pop the gear out, the teeth don't mate/engage with the flywheel. I can tell this since I physically have my fingers where the starter and flywheel meet. I had someone continually switch the ignition from the RUN and START position, feel the solenoid engage/disengage, and the gear will hit the flywheel. The corresponding teeth don't mesh.

Perhaps the gear teeth faces are just hitting each directly. I try to move the crank around to rotate the flywheel in order to get the teeth to mesh. No dice.

I've also tried to have the starter gear engaged while rotating the crank around to see if it would extend further and grab. Makes a grinding noise between the starter gear and flywheel when I turn it, but the reasons behind that are obvious. It also clearly indicates the starter teeth aren't popping into the flywheel teeth.

I feel the starter teeth and the flywheel teeth and I'm 99% sure the gear profiles match. What I feel like is happening is that the starter teeth aren't being extended out far enough to reach the flywheel. How much does the starter gear actually pop out? Finger gage seems to be less than a quarter of an inch when engaging/disengaging the gear.

Note, I also did not install the spacer between the crank flange and the flywheel.

Before, I attempt to remove the tranny, do you guys have any thoughts? I'm stumped. I really do not want to pull the tranny but if I have to, I guess I have to.

BTW, I saw this thread

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=111644&highlight=starter+spins

and I'm trying to figure out how the eff you push the starter further towards flywheel when it's already bolted flat to the bellhousing.

[Wishno87]

Had a similar issue. FW was fine tooth and starter was fat tooth. Just swapped starters and life is good.

[drumad]

Had a similar issue. FW was fine tooth and starter was fat tooth. Just swapped starters and life is good.

What's the year difference? I'm going to take a pic of my flywheel..........



I got a starter that was listed for a 1990 325i. Perhaps my flywheel is listed for a pre version? I got it from a JY and I honestly don't remember from which year I ordered it.

I'm off to the beach. Hopefully someone else can chime in and confirm. I'll be checking continuously on my phone, while I tan. Yes, while I tan.

Edit: at the beach, I shouldve checked the weather. Storms a brewing.

[328ijunkie]

I had a customer car in here a while back to replace the starter and two different starters he got from napa and then from advance were wrong. One was an E36 starter completely and the other was an E30 starter with an E36 pinion on it. I would double check that you have the right starter. His would still start with the second starter but sounded bloody awful as the gears were grinding.

[e30s50dan]

Had same issue with auto zone..returned starters many times till they got it right..don't know who rebuilds them for auto zone,but they need to get there shit right

[drumad]

Did some part digging through advance auto and rockauto. Seems as if the starters can either come with 9 teeth or 10 teeth.

I had a customer car in here a while back to replace the starter and two different starters he got from napa and then from advance were wrong. One was an E36 starter completely and the other was an E30 starter with an E36 pinion on it. I would double check that you have the right starter. His would still start with the second starter but sounded bloody awful as the gears were grinding.

Had same issue with auto zone..returned starters many times till they got it right..don't know who rebuilds them for auto zone,but they need to get there shit right

Son of a fuck. I really don't want to deal with this.

[drumad]

Sigh, tried another starter. Visually looked the same but installed anyways. Tried to rotate the crank/flywheel while the solenoid was kicking out the pinion in an attempt to mesh the two without success.

I got this through PM with Wishno87 concerning different flywheels.

I don't know any exact build dates but from I know its sometime in 87-88 they had a different ring gear for a couple of months. If you need to check out the wiring I can link you to a thread where its laid out pretty quickly but as for the starter it was more of a trial and error thing. I happen to have a few extra starters I compared it too.

Can anyone elaborate further? I can't find any information concerning different ring gear teeth sizes through search.

I've also tried to compare my flywheel with pictures of other people's flywheels on here and they are visually identical.

[Matt-B]

looks like a fine tooth, i had to grind block to fit an tiny tooth starter

[Wishno87]

looks like a fine tooth, i had to grind block to fit an tiny tooth starter

You ended up using my huge eta starter?

[drumad]

looks like a fine tooth, i had to grind block to fit an tiny tooth starter

IIRC, your set up is very similar to mine...

You ended up using my huge eta starter?

...so did you end up using an ETA starter (Matt-B)? I might have to grab one on the way home then.

BTW, I really appreciate the responses guys. (I'll also make this my unofficial build thread I guess)

[highoutput]

I had a similar problem. I used the M20 flywheel, and I didnt have an M20 starter, so I went and bought one from Advance Auto.
The problem was, the "new-reman" starter i got from adavance was the huge old style one, and wouldnt mate up to my E36 block, on the M50.
So I took the gear out of the new starter, and put it in the old body ect.....
But it still didnt work right. I ended up having to shim it back quite a bit for it to work. I was honestly amazed it even engaged and started at all.
I know thats not your problem, but I thought I'd share the experience.

On a side note, I bought a few flywheels in my build process. One of them was different than all the rest, but supposedly from and M20. The ring looked like it had smaller teeth on it, but I honestly never tried it.........

Good luck

[drumad]

I had a similar problem. I used the M20 flywheel, and I didnt have an M20 starter, so I went and bought one from Advance Auto.
The problem was, the "new-reman" starter i got from adavance was the huge old style one, and wouldnt mate up to my E36 block, on the M50.
So I took the gear out of the new starter, and put it in the old body ect.....
But it still didnt work right. I ended up having to shim it back quite a bit for it to work. I was honestly amazed it even engaged and started at all.
I know thats not your problem, but I thought I'd share the experience.

On a side note, I bought a few flywheels in my build process. One of them was different than all the rest, but supposedly from and M20. The ring looked like it had smaller teeth on it, but I honestly never tried it.........

Good luck

When you say shim, do you mean place a spacer/shim between the starter and bellhousing?

[grünwagen]

Sorry to dig this post back up but I’m having similar issues where the starter will crank most times but often will grind. Thought about engaging the starter solenoid with motor disconnected to test fit gear mesh but my transmission is out in order to resolve a clutch disengagement issue and I’m not sure you can properly test fit starter with it out. Any hints as to what step to take next with this would be great, I saw the ring gear has a bit of wear from this but doesn’t look terrible