Sounds like some rust or crud is preventing engagement. Perhaps a
misalignment due to a loose mounting bolt. If all is tight, take it out
and clean all moving parts thoroughly.  good luck.
On Monday, December 6, 2004, at 09:07  PM, Automatic digest processor
wrote:

> Date:    Mon, 6 Dec 2004 22:37:16 -0500
> From:    Dennis <guskersthecat@YAHOO.COM>
> Subject: Vanagon starter final drive issues?
>
> For those of you experienced with the internals of the vanagon starter:
>
> When doing my engine conversion, I had my 1990 Westy starter rebuilt.
> In
> the year the project languished, the starter lay unused, and the
> rebuilder
> retired.
>
> Increasingly, (about 50% of the time) the starter spins up, but does
> not
> engage the flywheel.  Naturally it never did this before the rebuild.
> I
> removed it once, and took it in to another bosch shop.  They bench
> tested
> and gave it back declaring it fit for service (they didn't energize it
> more
> than once I would guess).  So before I remove it again and bring it
> in, any
> thoughts?  My guess is that despite being freshly rebuilt, I now have
> a bad
> final drive.