Chipped/rounded Ring Gear Teeth - Affect on Flywheel Balance?

I realized the other day, after inspecting my flywheel, that I had a spot where 4 teeth of the ring gear were damaged by the starter gear. I think it’s because I have 17cc heads and the aftermarket starter (I only have it on 12V) seems to be relatively weak and that spot corresponds with where the starter engages when the resistance to turning is high from two of the cylinders being in compression, so the bendix isn’t able to engage fully and quickly, and would cause it to grind and miss the gear and not turn the motor. This happened to me a about three times recently. It has gnarled the teeth up pretty good (apologies for not posting a picture), so I’m thinking it’s time for a flywheel or at least ring gear change.
I filed off the burrs, but now those teeth have noticeably rounded corners, so I’m wondering what that does to the balance on the flywheel. This motor is 11K capable, so I’m worried about any imbalance.
It’s a Diamond lightweight flywheel and they’re out of business, so rather than figuring out who and sending it overseas for a ring gear replacement and rebalance, I’m think of just buying a new PPE FW.
So, before I do that, I just wanted to know whether I’m being overly paranoid about turning the motor with a few rounded teeth on the ring gear, since it’s been to 10K a few times already.

Can you turn it over and bolt it back on .. ???

Brand new engagement area ... :)

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Originally Posted by Chaz

Can you turn it over and bolt it back on .. ???

Brand new engagement area ... :)

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That’s a good idea. What about the little bit of missing teeth? Do you think that will change the balance at all? I’m ASSuming that it was perfectly balanced to like to a “nanogram”, of course!;)

You can chuck it in a lathe and "clean up" the rest of the teeth to match .. :D

Good idea. The back side of the teeth don’t need to be square anyhow.:p That will also make the flywheel a few nanograms lighter too! That should be good for about 12.35hp, by my calculations!;)

In the meanwhile, I was in the Clearwater area yesterday, so I decided to swing by PPE and got me a nice new hidden-rare-earth-magnet infused flywheel. That will no doubt blow away the competition.
All joking aside, the PPE flywheel is top shelf, better than even the Diamond one I have now. And like all of his stuff, Brendan’s shop is state of the art and he definitely knows what he’s doing. I was like a kid in a candy store in that place.
So, anyone want a nice blue Diamond flywheel with a few rounded teeth on it…?:D

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Originally Posted by CI STV

In the meanwhile, I was in the Clearwater area yesterday, so I decided to swing by PPE and got me a nice new hidden-rare-earth-magnet infused flywheel. That will no doubt blow away the competition.
All joking aside, the PPE flywheel is top shelf, better than even the Diamond one I have now. And like all of his stuff, Brendan’s shop is state of the art and he definitely knows what he’s doing. I was like a kid in a candy store in that place.
So, anyone want a nice blue Diamond flywheel with a few rounded teeth on it…?:D

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Post a pic of how bad the teeth are...someone may want it. I may want it. If it is useable then someone will buy it.

At that point......someone will want to buy it.....Pisst......is it a RH ore a LH ?????.....Flipping.... the gear is Cut for easy starter ingagement..... a 4/5 cut on the under side of gear.......Just Know the ID of ring gea:cheers:r and drill some holes.....Jusst A Drunk..........JAD....... HeeHeee.......:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by 25two.stroke

Post a pic of how bad the teeth are...someone may want it. I may want it. If it is useable then someone will buy it.

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Okay, I’ll post some pics. It’s useable for sure. Brendan also said he could replace the whole ring gear and re-balance it for me.

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Originally Posted by Dave S

At that point......someone will want to buy it.....Pisst......is it a RH ore a LH ?????.....Flipping.... the gear is Cut for easy starter ingagement..... a 4/5 cut on the under side of gear.......Just Know the ID of ring gea:cheers:r and drill some holes.....Jusst A Drunk..........JAD....... HeeHeee.......:rolleyes:

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It’s a right hand. I had no idea that the gear was cut for easy starter engagement. Good thing it was…:rolleyes:
I do know that Diamond used to offer two different thickness ring gears though: one being .125” and the other was stock thickness (?). They recommended the stock thickness gear for 24 volt start applications. I’m pretty sure I have the thinner gear.

Managed to take some pictures of the flywheel yesterday. There’s one tooth that definitely fubared and the ones adjacent to it are a bit worn as well:
Attachment 505143


Attachment 505144


Here’s the PPE flywheel I bought the other day:

Attachment 505145

Here’s the part I really like - no visible magnets! The magnets in the PPE flywheel are wafer thin rare earth magnets and they sit in slots that are covered by the flexplate. There’s no way for them to come loose and f@ck up up your stator either:
Attachment 505146

If you zoom in on the hole at the bottom of the picture, you can see the little wad of epoxy that Brendan used to balance the flywheel. This guy builds top shelf stuff.

Looking at the starter gear engagement..... a 10 thooth starter gear.....Kinda thinks a Force 11 gear might be a better,,,,,??????? Any one ???????

Ok. I thought we were stuck with that one type of starter? I’m wondering if using 24 volts for starting would help by making the bendix engage quicker?

Thats minor you could have that tig welded and ground by a competent fab guy like Chaz

I purchased a PPE a few weeks ago.Attachment 505182