1948 p 15Loud squealing sound from bell housing and car will barely run after rear engine mount swap

[whippersnapper48]

I lost one of the rear engine mounts on my 48 Plymouth, so today I decided to do the swap.  Everything went well until it came time to fire her up.  The starter was making a a rattling sound when I was cranking like the bendix was about to go.  when she finally caught, it was an awful high pitched squeal coming from that area of the bell housing.  I pulled the starter and dropped the clutch dust shroud to see what was going on. no sign of anything a rye in there, and the flywheel spins freely without any issue.   The starter spins over fine under its own power, but but back in there, it makes that damn awful screech! 

 

  My guess is I have a broken starter drive somehow causing the drive to catch and stay engaged while trying to run.  Am I on the right track? Any pointers?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Jon

[dpollo]

I cannot imagine how, but it sounds like you put a longer bolt in one of the holes which is now in contact with the flywheel.

[9 foot box]

   The P15 parts list calls for 2- 7/16-14 x 1 1/4” bolts with lock washers, to mount the starter. So if your inboard bolt is longer than that, dpollo, has probably seen this before. Rick D.

[whippersnapper48]

6 hours ago, dpollo said:

I cannot imagine how, but it sounds like you put a longer bolt in one of the holes which is now in contact with the flywheel.

Thanks for responding. I hope thats not the case, because I didn't pull the starter until it the noise happened after the mount swap. The hardware looks original from what I can see. I was going to just shim the starter with a couple washers to see if that fixed the issue.

[Bryan]

On changing my transmission mount on my 1992 Dodge Dakota the new bolt with the mount was 1/4 longer than the original and changed to metric. After struggling with trying to get the mount in for 1/2 hour, I finally figured the problem out and ground 1/4 off to get the mount in. Then I thought I had buggered the threads on the end  by grinding, until I finally figured they switched it to metric.  A lot of weird crap can happen.

[vintage6t]

I know you're focused on the starter but is it possible that the parking brake band is now too tight or the cable is bound as a result of changing the mount?

[whippersnapper48]

On 3/28/2022 at 10:03 AM, vintage6t said:

I know you're focused on the starter but is it possible that the parking brake band is now too tight or the cable is bound as a result of changing the mount?

This is a good thought, but the car has not moved and is in neutral when it's started. Somehow, the starter drive is not disengaging when the car starts for some reason. When it warms up a bit and I have more time, I'm going to make a few shims and see what happens.

[kencombs]

2 hours ago, whippersnapper48 said:

This is a good thought, but the car has not moved and is in neutral when it's started. Somehow, the starter drive is not disengaging when the car starts for some reason. When it warms up a bit and I have more time, I'm going to make a few shims and see what happens.

That could be, but it would be a heckofa coincidence that it failed when the motor mounts were changed.   Is it possible that a loose bolt somehow found it's way into the flywheel housing?  If not I'd be pulling the starter to examine, clean and lube the drive.

[whippersnapper48]

2 hours ago, kencombs said:

That could be, but it would be a heckofa coincidence that it failed when the motor mounts were changed.   Is it possible that a loose bolt somehow found it's way into the flywheel housing?  If not I'd be pulling the starter to examine, clean and lube the drive.

The starter is out, dismantled, and waiting for parts to come in. There was lots of metal shards in the nose cone and the drive won't return on its own. I have the inspection plate off for the clutch/flywheel as well. Everything isfine on inspection inside there.