i bought a starter for a 1976 f250 with a 460 in from autozone and the starter isnt sounding right hitting the fly wheel on the inside. has anyone ran into this before and how did you fix it? i have a harman marine engine (serial number hm6-2853). i am leaving for the lake on Sunday i need to get the boat running!!... 
There are a couple different 460 starters and flexplates that fit the 460. In standard mount situations USUALLY, almost 100%, a 164 tooth flexplate for an Automatic equipped Ford works just fine. Bear in mind, in most manuals, and NORMALLY in practice, this is also fine for a SB Ford. However, Many SB Fords had 157 tooth flexplates, even though all that is supposed to be interchangeable between the 351-460 Ford (parts houses don't generally know this, they know what the cumpoter tells them). There is also an HD 184 tooth, but very ucommon and not gonna get into that.
Bear in mind also these parts can be, and will, be swapped between engines, intentionally or not, so what I would do is crawl in there, Like I was crawling in between the Prom Queens thighs, put a sharpie mark on the ring gear and have someone rotate the engine over manually while I counted teeth. THEN you know what starter you need, or at least, who to ask!
Ray
