Starter sticking in the flywheel, concern or no?

[jstone4646]

Took the truck to work today (it was beyond words to say how overly excited I was for this moment!).  Everything went great, truck handled well on the highway....pure awesomeness.  But then I stopped for gas, and she cranked for a second and I heard a metal on metal 'thunk' and nothing.  Any attempt to crank after that was only clicking.  Found that the starter was stuck in the flywheel, manually rolled it back a tad and it popped free.  Truck ran and started fine the rest of the day.  Should I do anything preventative here or just keep going and see if it happens again?

[Gary Lewis]

I would roll the engine over slowly and inspect the teeth on the flywheel.  You may find that there are some bad teeth on it that are causing the starter to stick.

If not, then you may have a bad starter.  However, you should also check the bolts holding it on.

[jstone4646]

All good things to check Gary, thanks!  I do know my battery was weak, and I actually bought a new one right after this happened (thinking that was my fix...hoping anyways) and when I took the old battery to auto zone they reported it had dead cells and was holding around 100 cranking amps.....can you confirm if a low (basically dead) battery also cause the starter to get stuck by chance?

I knew the battery was problematic because it was weak the whole time I was working on the truck and getting her running right.  I trickle charged it probably 6 times or more during the course of getting the truck up and running.  Fresh battery now after this morning so I am really hopeful this was just a one time problem....but I do need to check the flywheel just to make sure.  Preventative maintenance is always preferred.

[Gary Lewis]

A bad battery can cause high current and weld the relay shut.  But yours doesn't appear to have been welded shut.  So I don't think that confirms that the battery was the issue.

On the other hand, if it doesn't come back then you solved it.