Been snooping around here but never had a reason to register till now. I have a '89 Cherokee that I bought with a transmission slip, I pulled the 21 spline out to realize no one near me had one, so I went to my local yard and picked up a '97 23 spline trans and transfer and bolted it back up to the engine with the exception of one dowel pin and got ready to put the torque converter bolts back in and realized that it wouldn't manually turn over, I was fighting the balancer. So I loosened the top transmission bolts thinking it was in a bind and it was, it turned now but with a grinding sound. I pulled the starter to find grind marks on the ear of the starter, but the thing is, I looked up parts numbers of '89 and '97 starters and they are the same. So right now, I'm not sure what would be causing this unless its the one dowel pin I forgot to put in.. If anyone can help, please, I would appreciate it!

 

Bump, I'm really needing help with this. Anyone?

 

Your description of your problem is really not clear.

First, What engine do you have?

You say 21 spline and 23 spline, but you don't give the make and model numbers of the two transmissions involved.

I'm assuming, since it was slipping, that you're talking about a automatic transmission.

Why did you leave out a dowel pin?
Was the bolt pattern different on the bell housings?

You say that you have "grind marks on the end of the starter".
Do you mean that something inside the bell housing is rubbing against the starter?

Did you use the same torque converter, or did you get one with the "new" transmission?

 

4.0 Renix, i stated the models were '89 cherokee and '97 AW4. Torque converter was exact same as the old 21 spline AW4. dowel pin was left out because I lost it during swap. I put one on the drivers side since passenger side had starter. The ear of the starter was hitting flywheel I'm assuming. Does it need to be shimmed? I never heard of shimming one of these. As this starter worked fine on the old AW4.

 

My Data shows that the flex plates are different between the 88 and 97 model AW-4 Transmissions.

I'm assuming that since you have Renix, you used your existing Flex plate?

Did you compare the bell housings side by side?

 

I don't think that this relates to the problem that you're having at the moment, but you will need the electrical connector from the 97 model AX-4 wiring harness.
You can splice the 97 model connector onto your existing wiring harness, 5 wires I believe.

 

Yes, I used the renix flex plate. Bell housings are pretty much exact I'm pretty sure. I put bullet connectors on the wires you are talking about, it was rather simple, just color matching. I didn't get the flex plate because it was cracked on the donor but it looked the same as the one I have (if I recall it right)

 

Ya really need the other pin it the center trans on back of block.

 

Got around to pulling it back out and putting the second dowel pin in, which fixed it. Thanks for the help.