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Because I did:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l7...ps48am3fct.jpg
Pretty surprising failure to me, apparently the only thing holding it together was being bolted to the crank on one side and the torque converter on the other side. The shop replaced it and the rear main seal while they were in there, so that's a plus. But now it's back in the shop because the starter was making grinding noises with the new flywheel, think it wasn't engaging completely.
The joys of an old vehicle!
I haven't seen it on 4Runners, but I have seen it on other vehicles.
Yikes. Was this a just driving along failure? Any warning or just boom?
There was some warning although at the time didn't know it was the flywheel actively dying. I actually drove the 4Runner to the shop like this (and to work the day before as well).
Basically, I had an intermittent ticking/rattling noise at idle I couldn't diagnose, seemed to come and go as I shifted into drive/reverse, and went away once RPM hit about 1500. At the time I thought it sounded like it might have been from the bell housing, but couldn't be 100% sure and had been thinking it might be the torque converter starting to go out and making some noise (or worse, maybe a tick in the engine's bottom end).
Then a few days ago I fire up the motor and a much louder metal scraping sound was coming from down there (again sounded like from the bell housing but hard to tell if it was there or engine or transmission). Noise followed with RPM but went away once I hit about 1500 rpm. Sounded very much like a bad flywheel or throwout bearing in a manual transmission car.
Anyway, drove to shop (yes drove) expecting them to tell me my I threw a bearing on my crankshaft or blew up the torque converter, but instead got lucky and it was a "badly cracked" flywheel. $1100 later I have a new flywheel and new rear main seal.
It must be all those horsepowers from the supercharger!
On the same topic, I'm getting a bit of a grinding noise from the starter every time I start, happens when the starter's solenoid disengages after the engine starts to turn over. Sounds like it seems to be getting a little better with time. The shop checked it yesterday and said the new flywheel may not mesh perfectly with my current starter's pinion (old flywheel had 217,000 on it after all, must have been well-worn), but there are no spacers available to help with the problem. Sounds like my options are either a new starter and see if that helps or just let this one wear into the new flywheel and see if the noise goes away. Shop said when they looked at it yesterday that there was no damage happening to the starter or flywheel yet (less than 10 starts as of then).
All of this sounds weird to me but I don't want to replace the flywheel again so I'm guess just let it ride and see if it breaks in over the next week or so? Anyone experience this after replacing a flywheel on a high-mileage car?
So looking at my original post, talk to text cut on my phone like 98% of what I said and made me sound like a total douche.
Let me elaborate on what I was trying to say there lol.
I have see this sort of failure happen on engines that have a little more umph behind them over factory, I.E. Diesels with tunes, cars with force induction with added tunes, etc.
And those super powerful dodge grand caravans and Town and Countries (actually the body style before the Routan inspired body had that issue lol)
The grinding doesn't sound right to me, I would try a starter before pulling the trans to change the fly wheel again.
I have heard it the other way around where people have put new starters on an older high mileage flywheel and get a grinding or to me more like screeching.
A buddy of mine With an F250 was in the exact same scenario as you, heard the noise, made it to the shop, they pulled the trans and the flywheel fell on the floor lol!
Wow, I had to do a lot of tweaking with the flywheel/clutch/pressure plate combo on my '84, but I never broke one.
Must be that supercharger!
Not sure about the new flywheel/starter issue either. I'd let it try to break in for a week or so, and see what the noise sounds like.
Over the years I have seen posts like this from several a/t 3rd gens, same symptoms. Of what I've seen, though, you win the Goes All The Way award!