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the godawful grinding noise was still there, of course.


since it had shifted out of position, it probably lost some teeth on the pinion and/or grinded a few off the flywheel ring and does not engage properly now. once you remove it you can tell for sure.

and if your belts were that loose then your other problem was probably the alt as mentioned^.

2.6 Trooper
2.0 Impulse Turbo