Where's sre all the machanics? I need advice...
 

The past two days I've experienced a strange noise while starting the car, in the mornings, when its cold. Yesterday the car started after a few attempts. Once warmed and shut off the car would start fine. Today was a different story. The car wouldn't start and all you heard was the noise. Kinda like metal banging coming from the tranny. My Max is a 5spd. I had the starter tested just to have that ruled out and it seems to be working fine. The noise is in that area. Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone had something similar happen?

When the starter was out did you take a look at the flywheel teeth for damage?

Sounds like bad bendix or bad teeth on flywheel.

i would look in the starter hole and makesure the flywheel is not fu**ed up and maybe try spinning the flywheel with a screwdriver make sure thers no side to side play in the flywheel also and go from there i assume you had the clutch pushed in all the way so the noise is proboly not coming form the trany unless the master or slave cylinders are bad

was it only when cranking the engine, or the first few seconds after starting.. when exactly does it heppen and not happen.

I could only see but so many teeth from where the starter sits. Those I can see appeared to be OK. whats the bendix?

Only when cranking the engine...


I could only see but so many teeth and they appeared to be OK. How can I get the flywheel to move? I tried but it seemed pretty set in its place. Yes the clutch pedal was depressed. I was thinking clutch master cylinder because about two weeks ago the clutch pedal was sticking and I had to bleed the slave to get it back in order but the slave didn't appear to be leaking.

How hard is it to drop the tranny to get a better look inside? I'm kinda low on the funds, I'm a little savvy with mechanics but I've never dropped the tranny or changed a clutchon a car.

for your first time pulling a tranny, expect to spend a day getting it out and a day putting it back in.

afterwards, you should be able to do it in 4-5 hours with air tools. add a couple hours if not.

Hey I'm trying the search engine for "How to's" on transmision removal with no success. Does anyone have a link they can post? Thanks in advance.

http://www.4dsc.com/articles/drivetr...h/clutch.shtml

you may also want to buy a repair manual for the car with pics its not to hard but if youve never done anything like this it may be try to have somone help you because the transmission wieghs alittle over 100 pounds

The bendix is the part of the starter that engages with the flywheel, when you test the starter off the vehicle it's the part that pops out and spins.

A weak bendix can still pop out and spin but may not always fully engage the flywheel.

I had the starter removed and a mechanic checked it. He said it was good but neglected to tell me what you are saying. I've had the car almost 6yrs now. How long do starters last?

Thanks for the link, and thats to all you guys for responding. If anything else comes to mind pls and I mean pls leave a post.

Don't touch that tranny....
 

To check all of the teeth -Remove the Starter - Put it in neutral - and then put a 23mm socket on the crank pulley and turn the engine over until you have seen all of the teeth - are they all there???

If so - take your starter down to an auto electric shop and have it checked out - Have them rebuild it anyway just cause.

To bring that number a bit lower, I would suggest draining out the gear oil before dropping the transmission. When I helped with removing MrGone's transmission, it didn't seem like it really weighed 100lbs, but it could very well have.

Thank you Nozama, subs1000w, Matt93SE, rexwl, and davebond007. Turns out the problem was the starter all along. I purchased a new one, slapped it on and now my Max starts like never before. It sounds really nice. Thanks guys for the advice. :thumbsup: I hate to think what the mechanic would have told me the problem was had I brought him the car.