How to time off the fly wheel - 1986 Jeep Cherokee

There are teeth on the fly wheel and you may have broken one or more teeth. You may have to replace the fly wheel. When you turn the fly wheel by hand you make the good teeth so the starter will work.

I don't think they put the timing marks on the main crank shaft front fly wheel any more, since they no longer have distributers. Take out your #1 cylinder spark plug and hand turn your engine crank until the piston is at top dead center, then make your own mark on the fly wheel....I don't think there is a mark any more, unless you have and older car with a distributer....if so...look down on your fly wheel....center front engine about 5/8 of the way down fro the top of your engine. Good luck...be careful.

I have seen this problem many times, people change clutches but don't machine the fly wheel. this causes a shudder or the other thing is a crack in the fly wheel or pressure plate, sorry but transmission out fly wheel off to be machined, new clutch and pressure plate

There is no way the ring gear will hit the starter pinion unless the fly wheel bolts on the crank shaft or loose allowing the flywheel to run out of true. If you have had clutch/ rear seal work done lately the fly wheel will only fit in one position and if that was ignored at some time then the fly wheel will run out and touch the starter pinion.. I would also check the adjustment on the starter pinion as it has to be set by the lever pivot to a correct distance or it will touch the teeth of the ring gear

You need to have your flywheel: replaced.Your starter motor engages against the fly wheel at the back of the motor. Every time your motor stops it tends to be in the same few positions (just the way things work) so there is more stress on some parts of your fly wheel than others. Because of this the teeth wear out on the fly wheel which means the starter can correctly engage on the fly wheel which is the grinding noise.

Yea I had the same problem. As long as you have the timing sight above the fly wheel you can pull the number one plug and tick crank the engine till you get the cylinder top dead center then mark the fly wheel with some thing (we used chalk) and then use a timing gun and use the mark for a reference. This will get you close and from there you can adjust it by ear. I found by doing slight adjustments and test driving it and check the acceleration and idle you can get it right.
Also the on-board computer plays a role in this so you might want to pull the negative battery cable and reset it so it will start at default then it can adjust it's self after a fer hours of running.
Yea it's amazing my fly wheel did not have any timing marks on it any where i scrubbed it and looked all over it ,and it's a stock fly wheel the timing sight is there just no timing marks.

Good Luck

It is either a bad starter or a bad fly wheel. What happens is the teeth of one or the other wear down. If you are turning the starter several times and it finally starts then you have a bad spot on your fly wheel. One way to check is to pull out the starter and look at the teeth on it. If it is your fly wheel it should be replaced but you will have some time. As the wheel turns you will probably not hit the bald spot on it that often.

to be honest it not as easy as it sounds to line them both up,,,,you may need to use a locking stud to do this,, and i have seen engines that just wont line up even to half a tooth out,,, but they run just fine anyhow, its all down to just how good the pullys were cut and marked

ITS NOT THAT HARD BUT YOU'LL NEED A PARTNER TO HELP YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO DROP YOUR TRANSMISSION TO GET TO YOUR FLY WHEEL

You more than likely need a new fly wheel, your fly wheel and starter are probably not making contact