I followed the excellent write up on motorvate.ca about regreasing part of the starter to get rid of the noise. I paid attention to the part that said "don't overgrease" and for a month or so it's been fantastic. The noise has started to come back now which suggests I've got the amount of grease wrong. Anyone know how much is enough? I added enough to very lightly coat the entire surface of the gears, maybe should have been a bit more.

 

If all you greased was the gears, that was not enough. You also have to remove the pinion gear from the shaft and clean and regrease it. That is the part that gets hung up from the sticky grease. The pinion gear does not disengage from the ring gear fast enough. The pinion gear is the big one that engages the flywheel ring gear. The planetary gears also need grease, but I don't think they contribute to the noise.

 

Oh yeah, I misread that. Thanks for the help man.

 

Make sure you use a high quality high temp. grease as well. If not, the grease will just get cooked and become sticky again.