1999 Ford Contour SVT - starter squeals only on cold startups

[Mr Bill]

Just installed a new clutch, pressure plate etc. and everything works fine except when the car is started and when its cold outside the starter squeals. If restarted after 30 minutes warm up no noise.

Note: the starter was removed from the car before and worked fine but sat out for 6 months until I repaired my car. I am afraid something rusted or got into it. It was on the garage floor.

All connections tight and bolts tight.

 

[montrese04]

if it's not broke dont fix it personally. but yes you have definitely collected too much dust/debris on the shaft that the engagement gear springs out on.

 

[Mr Bill]

Thank You very much. Take care.

 

[B3NN3TT]

That's putting a hurt on your flywheel every time it does that. Better get it taken care of ASAP unless you like removing the transmission or something...

 

[gmorrell]

Agree with B3NN3TT, if the starter is squealing after you release the key from start, it's probably not disengaging from the flywheel ring gear. This will wear the ring gear and starter pinon gear rather rapidly and it can throw the armature windings in the starter, because the running engine over-revs the engaged starter. This can either be a crapped up Bendix drive on the starter or a mis-aligned bell housing. Suggest you pull the starter and either clean up the Bendix drive, replace it, or get it rebuilt.

Bell housing should be aligned on dowels, this starter uses a pin to set alignment to the bell housing, but I've seen mis-aligned bell housings when folks do a clutch job and forget to install the lower bell housing shield which is often used as a shim to keep the bell square with the engine block.

 

[Mr Bill]

Thanks

 

[Mr Bill]

I removed the starter brought to auto store to test. Works fine but squeals. Teeth on starter and fly wheel fine. No shavings anywhere. Talked to a friend who works on these and he suggested to hit it with WD40 and let sit for a few hours, wipe, then pb blaster, let sit a few hours, wipe and then grease. One thing I noticed after this I could manually move the starter gear, the one that turns the flywheel back and forth.

The shims you discussed were installed and and all dowels are aligned. How can someone mess up the dowels fitment? It only fits one way?

Tested and so far so good but needs to get a little colder for full check.

 

[Mr Bill]

Runs fine now. No starter noise.