RING GEAR TROUBLES PART II

[Mag Man]

Hi good people As some of you may remember that I had asked a while back about fixing a ring gear without splitting the tractor with a dremel or file.
Ok Its about 0-F today and the little cub with the distributor wont crank with the starter and I cant crank it enough with the hand crank to get her running. So I deside to pull the starter and have a look. SOB, SOB, The starter drive is completly ruined got about a half cup of metal shavings.But the funny thing is the ring gear is a little worn from the bad starter drive but its in pretty good shape.So I am lost what caused this. The starter looks to be a new or rebuilt unit from the early 90s I beleve is when the guy I got it from said the last time he had it running.
It looks to me like it was not ingauging all the way and chewed up the first 1/8 to 1/4" of the starter drive teeth.I also noticed that there is about 1/4" to 5/16" of end play in the starter armiture .Has any one ever came into a problem like this. Is the end play what caused the problem? I can get a new drive reasonable But I am not sure if the armiture is that good either . Any Ideas would be helpfull
THANKS JON

[Bigdog]

Jon - most assuredly 1/4" to 5/16" of end play is unreasonable and surely lead to your problem. Thankfully (hopefully) the ring gear is as good as you say. A total starter re-build would be in order. You might get lucky and find a good used one from one of the supporting advertizers on the board or even take a shot on e-bay.