On Mon, 1 Dec 2008 05:48:09 -0800 (PST), stryped
wrote:

I took that old techmseh apart his weekend. I had a question. It is
electric start and has never worked that I can remember. I could
always hear it spin when we tried to use it and assumed that teeth
were missing on the flywheel. But this wekend when I took it apart,
all the teeth were on both the pinion gear and the flywheel. When I
connected the starter to voltage, it spun. The problem seems to be
that the pinion gear is about half an inch or more from the flywheel
gear and the two never come in contact. Is the pinion gear on the
starter supposed to "move forward" when voltage is supplied to engage
the teeth? What could this problem be?
Inertia causes it to "wind" up the worm gear against spring tension
to engage. Try PB Blater and a bit of "gentle persuasion" to see if
you can get it to move. If not the circlip on the end comes off and
you get out the heavy guns to remove it. I've had PB blater free them
up very often - sometimes takes a few days of twice-daily
re-application.

Lots of other good products too, but do NOT use WD40, and do NOT use
heat. In many cases the helix is plastic.