Sticky Starter

[type26owner]

I've struggled with heating the ring gear with an oxy-acetylene torch and rosebud tip too. IIRC paper and cardboard burn at a temperature of about 500-600F so if you do the math it appears to work. Don't have a ring gear in front of me so I'll guess the ID is 12". 9E-6 (inch/inch degree F) is the coefficient for steel. Anyway the temperature is well below the typical temper range of about 750F for heat-treatable steels so there's little chance of damaging the ring gear.
9E-6 * 500F * 12" = .054"

Last ring gear I did was the one on my son's 383 Plymouth 70 RoadRunner. It had 60 thou of interference and the gear was huge in diameter. I could not get the gear to expand evenly with the torch. It took hours and hours to finally accomplish. There must be a better, easier way so I did some research and ran across this tale on the internet. Just wondering if it actually works.
-Keith

[twincamman]

use the oven at 250 degrees for 1/2 hour---[best done when the wife is out ] ed :angry:

[Tony Mongillo]

I changed the ring gear on my Sprint many years ago because of a sticking starter that turned out to be caused by chipped teeth on the ring gear.

I cut the old ring gear off with a hacksaw and stone chisel.

I then froze the flywheel, and heated the ring gear in the oven (wife wasn't at home for either of these activities). (The smell of heated oil does linger for quite a while.) As I recall, I heated the ring gear to 400 degrees F, give or take.

Then, in one swift move, aligned and pushed the ring gear on. You have only one chance to do this. It actually went on pretty easily.

Good Luck,

Tony