To TYm McDowell and listees,
One thing to be concerned with, especially when changing engines, is the
number of teeth on the flywheel ring gear when mating a starter to it (as
well as the built-in flywheel balance weights). When I rebuilt my engine I
was having a new ring gear installed onto the flywheel (the old one was all
chewed up). The previous owner had swapped a 5 bolt 289 for the 260. The
shop called me and said it had an "odd" number of teeth on the flywheel for
a 289. Apparently Ford used different numbers of teeth for different
engines. A mismatch will cause the teeth to be eaten off rapidly, and you
cannot visually look at the starter drive gear and know which number of
teeth it is supposed to mesh. Maybe someone on the list can clarify (by the
numbers) which goes with what?
Cullen Bennett
Tempe, Arizona USA
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