I will explain all that has happened so others with this problem in the future will benifit from my experience and not only save time, but their religion too.

My first starter was working fine. One day it just quit engaging the flywheel. There was no noise of anything breaking or binding or anything other than the starter spinning around and the engine not turning over. So we just removed it and replaced it with a new starter. End of that story.

As you know it made quite a noise which we hoped would get better as it seated and wore into place (So we thought). Well as you know if you have been following my postings that the new starter also quit. It has only been almost 90 days and less than 200 miles on the new starter and I don't drive it everyday, but at least once a week. Well I will need a warehouse full of starters at this rate. So I decided to do an autopsy on both starters to determine the cause of death.

My original starter No. 1 MK 3 autopsy: The starter shaft is hollow. There is a rod-spring-combination that is connected to an iron cylinder that is inside an electromagnet. When 24 volts is entergized the starter spins and the electromagnet pulls the drum into the magnet and pushes the rods and springs forward to push the gear into the flywheel. This process is over simplified here because there are several different lengths and diameters to deal with, but you get the idea and the motor turns. Well over the years the iron rods wear and get scored. The lubricant or grease disappears or cakes up and after many years of setting up and use this along with the wearing of the rods creates a bind and sooner or later everything locks up and does not move except for the main starter shaft which just spins the gear without it going out to engage the flywheel. Now you know the circumstances of the death of the first starter.

Second starter also No. 1 MK 3 autopsy: The symptoms were the same. Starter spins and gear does not go out and engage the flywheel. It should be noted that this was a factory rebuilt starter which looked new, had been wrapped with cosmoline on the shaft and gear. Most likely stored for years. Death was due to a cracked gear that failed. Most likely this was overlooked by the person rebuilding the starter because it was a hair line crack between two gear teeth. This crack changed the tolerance between these two teeth and put the gear in a bind with the flywheel. This is what caused the grinding noise when the starter was first installed. Instead of seating or wearing in as we thought it would the gear actually got hot and expended the crack enought to cause the gear not to disengage from the flywheel and it broke and broke a couple other small pieces inside the hollow shaft and the flat pin that held the gear. The actual starter stilled worked on the inside, but everything on the outside went to hell mighty quick.