1962 ford thunderbird 390 starter direct drive

[wmoyers1964]

I've put 3 rebuilt starters from napa in a 1962 thunderbird 390 with the direct drive built on the end of the shaft and they all stay engauged or hit the flywheel teeth after it starts. I'm an older guy at 57 and have worked on cars all my life. I've never seen this type of starter and am trying to figure out if I can put a front kick or drive starter in it. I've found 1 that is a 55-64 powermaster gear reduction 12v 390 FE 3.7:1 ratio 153 tooth. can this be done I need someone with alot more knowledge than me to please help. This is my bosses car all original everything and I'm just trying to help him fix it. Thanks for any help.

[kbuhagiar]

Welcome aboard!

There are some known problems with auto parts suppliers providing the wrong replacement starters for these cars.
Take a look at this picture - does this look like the starters you have gotten (and installed) from Napa?

This is the starter used for the early 153-tooth flywheels and should be the correct one for this car.


The later (184-tooth flywheel) starter looks like this:

s-l400.jpg (18.82 KiB) Viewed 876 times

Although it will bolt in, if it works at all it usually makes a horrendous grinding noise and won't mesh correctly with the earlier flywheel teeth.

The Powermaster starter you described sounds like it will work, as it specifies the 153-tooth gear/flywheel (which should be what you have).

Let us know what you have.

[wmoyers1964]

Yep it looks like that and it's new rebuilt junk. Yes it's 153 teeth counted them myself. I heard there's a good front engage starter replacement for that junk that was in there. It looks like that but powermaster makes it. Thanks for the input!

[kbuhagiar]

The Powermaster starter sounds like a solid choice.

When I replaced mine last year this is the one I used:

https://www.robbmcperformance.com/produ ... block.html

3026_4x.jpg (28.98 KiB) Viewed 872 times

Good luck!

[Bulletbird75]

I’m restoring a 1963 and the proper flex plate needs to correspond with the starter. I can show pics later but the teeth on the flex plate- from the factory I think-are designed differently whether it’s a front or rear engagement starter. I checked my armature and replacing my brushes and checking my bushings on mine. I am replacing the gear drive on the it however because they stick in sometimes.