I have a 97 Dakota with the 3.9 V-6 , auto trans ,,, I'm having what i think is a problem with the way i installed a new starter today . A little history first ,,, BEFORE i found this site ,,, i was throwing my money at an intermittent starting problem that would only happen once in awhile and then it got severely worse , i would turn the key to start and nothing but a click would happen , turn the key again to start another time or 2 and it would start and be fine the rest of the day and maybe a few weeks would go by and it would happen again . So i done all the simple things like checking the wireing , battery connections , fuses , relays , ect . Well it left me stranded in my own driveway on friday , would not hit a lick no matter how many times i turned the key ! My bro just decided to push on the truck to rock it back and fourth and i hit the key and it started , thought maybe it could be the park/neutral start switch in the trans giving problems so we replaced it , tried to start the truck again and you guessed it , click click - no start without several attempts !! Then we tried to adjust the shifter cable as per the haynes manual instructions ,, again ,, click click - no start without several attempts !! Decided to pull the ign switch and replace it ,, again ,, click click - no start without several attempts !!! It`s then when i get online and find this site and search the threads to find out that the problem has been the starter all along !! I went to Advance Auto and bought a brand new starter ( found that was made in china--ugh! ) and not a re-man one , put it on and now it starts EVERY time i hit the key ----- great !! ------ but ----- now when it starts it does this ,,, i turn the key - starter engages - engine turns over really good and starts on the first couple of revolutions - after it fire`s the rpm`s pick up for a second which is normal ,, BUT ,, it then suddenly drops down to almost a stall and the whole time i can hear a funny whine ? sound from what seems to be the starter ,, and then the noise quits and the rpm`s pick back up to idle and it`s fine from there on out ,,,,, it has never started that way before this so i know it`s not normal ,,, my experiance is telling me that the starter gear isnt releasing from the flexplate when the motor starts --- so my question is ,, how can i correct this ?? there were no shims on the old starter so do i need shims for the new one ?? If so - where do i get them from ?? or is there an simple adjustment to correct it that i dont know about ?? Thanks for your help on this !!!

 

Did you use any shims? you need to check the gear mesh.

 

That`s what im trying to figure out now , how to check the gear mesh and where to get shims from ? It`s only going to be a 101 today ,, look`s like i`ll be staying in the house alot ,, i should be able to log plenty of time on the internet looking up stuff lol !!!

 

shims should have come with the starter or already been on the truck. There is a tool used to check mesh it has sticks of metal of different thickness.

 

Just wanted to give an update on the starter issue`s i had , it`s finally fixed ! Apparently there is no shims available for these starters ,, the teeth mesh is adjusted by " positioning " the starter via the top bolt hole on the starter it`s self . The top bolt hole is a bigger dia than the bottom bolt hole ,, the bottom bolt hole is snug to the bolt and holds that position so the top bolt hole can provide the pivot for the in or out adjustment to the flexplate , it`s not much in the way of in/out movement but enough to make a difference !!! After i got the starter issue straight , the engine was still dropping rpm`s and trying to stall right after firing , the problem turned out to be a bad idle air control valve ,,,, apparently the engine turns and fires faster with the new starter than what it did with the old starter ,,,, so the problem with the bad IACV was already there ,, i just didnt notice because it was masked by the slow turning starter & starting rpm`s and the valve just happened to be stuck at high enough idle speed to not know anything was wrong with it . Hope that info useful to someone else if they need it !!