Roadblock #1 of Many

After carefully documenting the order of the spark plug wires,  pulling the old plugs, changing the wires, I was anxious to start it up and hear it purr like a cat. Surely after investing a whole $30 at AutoZone, the YJ would sound like a brand new Jeep. I hop in the ripped up seat turn the key and the most horrendous sound erupted from the engine.  Metal on metal and then spinning, nothing happens the Jeep doesn’t turn over.  I try again, now all I hear is spinning, not good.  My first foray into becoming Mr. Goodwrench and I blew it.  There is no way I could have screwed this up, I wrote everything down, took pictures, I didn’t touch anything else beside the distributor, ignition coil, the plugs and the wires. So I go thru each wire, making sure it is tight against the plug, checking each connection.  Everything look OK, let’s start it up and try again…Nothing but spinning.

Now it’s time for my Ninja Google skills to take over. Google, YouTube, JeepForum.com, WranglerForum.com, hours of researching.   New starter, new ignition coil,   same result.  Test the battery, test the ground, test the fuse and relays, same result.  Search some more, some people mention the flywheel could be bad… What the hell is a flywheel?

Seems that the starter spins the flywheel which in turn cranks the engine. To troubleshoot the issue, all I need to do is hand crank the engine and see if the Jeep starts.  Apparently, the flywheel spins but stops around the same spot everytime, so that section of the gears get dulled.  Now how the hell do you hand crank an engine???

More ninja searching, I figure out how to move the flywheel.  Turn the key and it starts up.  Now how do I replace the flywheel??