Starer ring gear teeth

[wobblyweb]

Loads in the archives but I cant find a definite answer...
My starter has 10 teeth and the ring gear 110
I have read it should be 10/135 teeth
or 9/110 teeth
So mine is a mix , I would like to stick with the starter I have, should I have a ring gear with 110 or 135 teeth?

Thank you
Rae

[types26/36]

Originally it was a 110 on the f/wheel and 9 on the pinion, I have had better results with 10 on the pinion still with 110 on the f/wheel........others will disagree with this and would rather stick with the 110/9 combination, I believe Miles Wilkins recommends the 9t pinion.
As far as I remember 135 is for a pre engaged starter.

[promotor]

Agree with the above regarding 10 and 110.

Ford Escort mk1 manual states that it is 10 teeth with a 110 tooth ring gear and since Ford made all the relevant parts (excluding the flywheel but it is the ring gear that is the important part, not the flywheel itself) that went on the Lotus I'd stick with that.

Pre-engaged :
10 tooth starter and 135 tooth ring gear (this ring gear will not fit Lotus flywheels)
11 tooth starter and 132 tooth ring gear (this ring gear will fit Lotus flywheels)
Pre-engaged starters were all 3 bolt fastening. That's not to say you couldn't try to fit one and just use two bolts as the bolt hole centres are the same but I can't confirm if there any fouling issues between the redundant 3rd hole and the gearbox and/or spacer plate).

Inertia :
10 tooth starter and 110 tooth ring gear.
Starters were 2 and 3 bolt fastening.


Unless your starter is making a grinding noise and the teeth on the ring gear are mangled I would leave as is unless you want to upgrade to a pre-engaged setup.
If you do don't try and "mix and match" - I did this with a 10 tooth pre-engaged starter and a 132 tooth pre-engaged ring gear - it mangled the teeth on 2 ring gears until I realised I'd got the wrong combination.

[bob_rich]

Hi Rae

I have attached a scan from a Ford service manual for the Mk2 Cortina outlining the options used on the engines in that car that used the Xflow 1300 /1600 cc engines. For the twink I think the ring gear should be 110 tooth and there is a lot of debate over 9 or 10 turn pinions. It seems to me that both 9 and 10 turn pinions have been used by many without problems - - currently I have a post on a ring gear problem which I am looking into at present and I feel that the problem will be more than just the 9 or 10 turn pinion issue

Hope you find info useful

best of luck

Bob

[wobblyweb]

Thank you every one that's all very helpful.
The ring gear is chewed up and the engine is out anyway so I will change it. I had almost decided to go 10/110 and will definitely do that now.
Price of ring gears seems to be about ?50 I think the last one I fitted was ?10.00

Rae

[promotor]

Do you have a photo of the worst of the damage on the ring gear teeth?

[wobblyweb]

Sorry about the quality

[promotor]

Looks normal to me - the teeth have a "chamfer/leading edge" on them from new - this aids the starter pinion into the teeth. They do get "battering" marks over time as the pinion engages but that looks OK to use.

[wobblyweb]

Hmm that's got me thinking, the photo is probably the better of the 2 worn parts. Someone said to move the ring gear around which made me think remove it and refit. Thinking about it , if I set the engine at TDC and refit the fly wheel 90 deg from where it was, would it then engage on new teeth? If it is not too badly worn would this be a solution?

[types26/36]

Normally there are four positions where the ring gear gets chewed up (due to being a four cylinder and having four compressions where the engine stops) I dont think it is practical to remove and reinstall a ring gear as it is normal practice to saw and split the ring gear to remove it.

[RichardHawkins]

Rae,

A very confusing subject with different people offering opposing advice. I would have thought there was only one correct combination of pinion and ring gear, but this does not seem to be so.

I have removed a ring gear without splitting it. I placed the flywheel with ring gear on the garage floor, and using a large drift (a piece of 1.5" by 1" flat bar 8" long) and a 4lb club hammer worked my way round the flywheel hitting the ring gear with the drift and hammer until I eventually got the ring gear off.

Richard Hawkins

[promotor]

You'll be fine with rotating the flywheel to a position where it hasn't been suffering under compression load.

Unless you want to weld the ring gear on I wouldn't want to remove one by pressing/knocking it off - they stretch out of shape during removal as you have to stretch them over the retaining lip on the flywheel. Or if unlucky you can break off part of the retaining lip itself.

Different combinations of ring gear and pinion will work, but only the correct combination will work AND last.

[twincamman]

well in 4 ring gears I have installed 2 not counting the original one and have had the motor out 4 times I suggest you spend 70 bucks and take it to an expert machine shop . pulling the engine out is total PITA but thats just my opinion as I would rather drive the car than repair it constantly ?.ed

[twincamman]

heres what mine did

[Chancer]

Normally there are four positions where the ring gear gets chewed up (due to being a four cylinder and having four compressions where the engine stops) I dont think it is practical to remove and reinstall a ring gear as it is normal practice to saw and split the ring gear to remove it.

Not true, there are two positions.

I dont really have anything tangible to add to this debate other than I fitted a lightweight steel flywheel and paddle clutch of unknown origin to a highly tuned all steel X/flow years back without realising that it had a different ring gear to the original, it never sounded like it was gnashing but the (inertia) starter would occasionally stick, TBH it sounded pretty much like it did before. The engine always had problems with starting against the increased static ignition advance and as such was a slow reluctant cranker.

Then one day I fitted a different starter and it sounded completely different, just like a B series MGB, it seemed slower but more constant, as if it had more power through being geared down and the engine started much better, it no longer tried to stop against the compression/advance. It didnt sound at all like a Ford engine when cranking.

I removed the starter and found that it had 9 teeth against the original 10 teeth, its many years ago so I may have got that backwards.

What I learned from it is that both 9 an 10 teeth pinions fitted to whatever ring gear I had (I didnt count the teeth) would crank the engine without apparent distress or damage but the correct one was much more efficient.

From reading this thread my immediate reaction was "it needs a 9 tooth pinion" back in the day my ears were attuned and at a kit car club meet etc I could hear when someone had the wrong pinion fitted and advise the owners, some just shrugged their shoulders and ignored the unsolicited advice, others changed the pinions and thanked we when they felt the difference, many of the former camp ended up changing chewed up ring gears but still retained the incorrect starter pinion

I would think that over the years many many Elans will have been fitted with incorrect pinions supplied by motor shops or factors.