Having some issues starting my GLi. Occasionally, the car will not start
and I get a nice noise as I turn the key. The noise is something of a
grinding, but rather high pitched. My guess is the starter is not engaging
the flywheel and just spinning. Therefore, the noise is the starter
spinning. To solve this problem, I turn the key to the off position and
fiddle w/ the key, clutch, and shifter, in no particular order. Sometimes
this will fix the problem on the next turn of the key, sometimes not. It
can take up to 5 minutes b/f the starter and flywheel meet up properly and
she starts. When they do engage, she cranks for a while b/f kicking over.
My question is, is this just a bad starter that needs to be rebuilt? Or
has a tooth or two on the flywheel become stripped? Any way of checking the
flywheel w/o tearing everything apart?
Any advice/experience would be appreciated,
Renard
