barks944

My 86 951 has recently eaten two starter motors. It looks like the starter motor teeth are moving in too close the the flywheel on my car, the bolts holding the starting ring gear to the flywheel are hitting the metal face behind the starter teeth and wrecking the starter motors.

The starter must have moved relative to the flywheel. Any ideas as to what could cause this? Since I have replaced the starter, albeit it with a replacement old rusty one does that point towards the flyhweel moving? There has been no recent work on the flywheel.

931guru

Two possibilities I can think of:

1) worn thrust bearing inside the engine causing crankshaft endplay

2) Improper bell housing (i.e. 944 in a 951)

xsboost90

take a pry bar and see how much play there is front to back in the crank - maybe at the front pulley. Seems like the bolt heads are usually counter sunk?

barks944

We were just discussing the fact that the bolts seem to be countersunnk in most pictures we found. I think the bellhousing is the original on the car. Ive had the car for about 6 months and it killed the latest starter in about 4 days. Somthing must have changed recently. Movement in the crank seems feasible.