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Posted by David Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Friday, November 19, 2010 at 21:20:58 :
In Reply to: Engine Lore... posted by dave horvath [12.130.9.139] on Friday, November 19, 2010 at 17:54:18 :
Makes sense to me, though I wouldn't think it would always land on the same cylinder's spot until the engine got noticeably worn. Until then, it seems like it could land on any of 3 spots. This is what you notice when you turn an engine by hand with a bar or crank. If the engine is tight, each 1/3 turn feels the same. If it's starting to wear, some spots feel softer than others, and sometimes you hear the valves leaking more during one portion of turning than the others.
To my thinking, it wore the ring gear in only one spot because as the engine got tired, that's where it always stopped. Now that it's been freshened up and all cylinders are equal, it will only stop there 1/3 of the time. I have seen this many times on different engines with stripped ring gears. Most of the time the pinion will engage just fine, but other times it will spin and not engage at all. This is how you can tell that the problem is a bad spot on the ring gear rather than a stripped starter pinion because if it was the pinion, it would always spin without engaging (more likely the Bendix/drive) though).
All in all, since your ring gear teeth only "show wear on the front edge", it should be fine as is, and you're right that most of the wear will go onto other teeth with the rebuilt engine. If you said your ring gear was stripped out in one spot, but you'll run it like that because it'll probably never stop on the stripped spot again, then I'd suggest moving it or replacing it.
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