So, as in my "what i did today" post....
Started car, and for whatever reason the starter solenoid didnt disengage. Which left my pinion in the start postition, by the way its a horrible noise...all I could think of is broken teeth or burnt windings. I did get the battery disconnected and finally shut the car off (as when i just turned the ignition to the "off" postition the starter kept trying to run). I took my long punch and tapped the solenoid/starter casing and hooked everything back up and it ran fine, and shut off fine as well. My question is this: How much damage do you think is done to the starter and or flexplate (its an auto)? I know its hard to judge without pulling it out and looking at stuff. But it seems to run fine for now. On a side note, I do think I need to adjust my neutral safety switch, sometimes I have to jiggle the shifter to get it started...this just started recently. Does anyone think that these two things might be connected?

You likely have a malfunctioning overrunning clutch in your starter. What the overrunning clutch does is it keeps torque flowing through the starter gear in one direction, i.e. it lets only the starter push on the flex plate/flywheel, rather than the flex plate apply torque to the starter. When the clutch receives torque from the flex plate it pulls the starter gear back in to the starter housing.

You could have either a bad clutch or a short to power in the "hold in" winding circuit.

The neutral safety switch will cut power to the starter control relay if it is acting up, so these sound like two completely different issues to me.

This post has been edited by OnAllFours: Jul 11, 2010 - 12:29 PM

Nice to see this is still up here.