On my 16 5.0. I had my truck at my mechanic for a vibration and I asked him if he could change the starter because I didn’t feel like doing it. He said the one bolt was ready to break so he didn’t do it because he would have to pull the transmission out to drill out the snapped bolt
I guess I’ll cross that bridge when it does go out

 

Good Luck!

 

Well that sucks. Hope you get if fixed. Keep us posted.

 

How do you know a bolt is "ready to break"? I can understand the head being rounded or the bolt being too tight and then I would be using penetrating oil a daily basis until it comes out,
EDIT "...too tight" was a poor choice of words. What I meant was seized, rusted/corroded. cross threaded etc. Synthetical61 used the correct word.

 

Or he did not want to replace it. Normally you can't tell that a bolt is ready to break, until you try it. Maybe he means it is seized? Might want to us PB blaster on the bolt threads.
Try spraying them a few times before attempting to replace the starter.

 

Most would apply heat if in question.

 

I wouldn't recommend it myself, but I know a couple of guys that only used two bolts going back in and it seems to work fine. This was because they couldn't get the top bolt out, so not sure which bolt is the problem on your rig but maybe in a crunch if it fails this is an option.

 

My first question is why do you think the starter needs replaced? Seems like an odd request to just throw in there without a catastrophic failure.

And second…any decent mechanic comes across stubborn bolts all the time and knows how to approach the situation. Methinks he didn’t want to change it or doesn’t think it’s necessary and trying to wiggle out of it, maybe because of my first question.

 

I just changed my 2018 5.0 starter recently, it only had 2 bolts and it works just fine. It came that way from Ford, the Gen 3's only have 2 bolts.