I've been a little busy with the arrival of spring (such as it is),

but now that the weather has cleared up, it's back to work.  Yesterday I jumped in the truck for a quick trip to the grocery store when I heard a horrendous grinding noise coming from the starter.  The engine started, but the starter wasn't disengaging.  Now, this has happened once or twice before and a little bump from the key always fixed it.  Not this time.  The whole engine was locked up tight.

So, I removed the starter (just three 5/8" bolts) and took a look.  Two things caught my eye.  The first was this rather large pile of gunk right next to the flywheel over there on the left.  The second was that the starter pinion gear was jammed tight up against the end of the starter body.

It really was an easy fix.  The starter is held together by four screws.  Two are on the end of the body (you can just make them out in the picture) and two are inside the body once you slide it apart.

The inside of the starter was pretty clean for being 42 years old.  A little bit of rust was here and there, but overall, it looked good.  The shaft was very dry, though, where it fit into the bushings at each end.  Also, the pinion gear slides up and down on the shaft and it appeared to be binding up near the top where some grease and the aforementioned gunk had teamed up to become a sticky mess.

The shop-vac took care of the mess, some fresh lube fixed up the shaft and a quick rub with some emery paper renewed the commutators at the end of the starter.

The long and the short of it?  The starter works.  And the truck starts up better than my Ford Explorer (that is 30 years younger!)