1999 Limited with 3.4 and auto.
Just paid a shop to change out the flex plate and now the starter is squealing when cranking over. Pulled the cover plate to take a look and notice that the bendix is touching on one side of the flex plate/ring gear. Pretty sure this is where the squealing is coming from.
Also found one bolt missing. Called shop and they said one bolt was missing when they opened it up.
After measuring a bolt I took out, found it is an M9 x 1.25 bolt. I have never seen an M9 size before and no one carries that size. Had to pay 49.00 to dealer to get the 6 flex plate to convertor bolts. That is when I found out that one bolt is different than the others. It is supposed to be a centering bolt. Just looking at it I can not see a difference except for dark gray color.
Question I have is - this should be the first bolt installed, is there a certain position on the flex plate or convertor that this bolt is particular to?
Bumfuzzled---

OK, found this and posting for others in case they might have the same question.
You tube. Followup comments covered it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0n8ZsWhlL8&t=20s

I never noticed a different bolt when bolting the flex plate to the crank on my 96 and 97 engines.


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That black centering bolt is not that crucial in my opinion. The important thing is you get all the bolts started hand tight first, and then you do several passes slowly bringing the bolts up to spec. This requires several turns of the crankshaft, but it's the best way to evenly tighten and torque the bolts to spec.

I can't believe the incompetence of the shop you used. Even if it was true there was a bolt missing, why the f*ck didn't they tell you this? That's absurd!

I recommend using a little blue 242 loctite on the bolt threads as extra insurance.

Yes, I am still po'd about it. Thought I'd save a little time as I was working on another car. Man was I wrong.

Thanks for your info. I put them in this pm and added a dab of blue loctite as well. Torqued to 30 ft lbs in steps.

There is a slight shoulder on the one "alignment" bolt. Easy to miss. And to top it off, these bolts are M9 x 1.25. No one lists that size but the dealer that I could find. I painted that one bolt with white paint so it could be quickly ID next time.
Why the BLACK bolt goes in flex plate/torque converter on Toyota first - YouTube

Every time I torqued them bolts to 30 ftlbs is didn’t seem like enough.


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What i don't agree with in that video is the guy is telling people to run the special alignment bolt in first and torque it to spec. Since when do you fully tighten one bolt of a multi-bolt application and then get the other bolts in?

If you get all the bolts started hand tight and they are all touched down, that means the special black centering bolt is doing its alignment job. Then you do what I suggest by slowly and evenly bringing up the bolts to the proper torque spec. I just don't agree with fully torquing one of six bolts before even getting the others bolts in.

I think because of the very small shoulder, it forces that shoulder to be in the seated position all the way ?

One other thing I can't quite get about this is why not two alignment bolts, one on each side. If you look at the flexplate like a 360 degree circle, seems like you can be out on the opposite 180 degree side. I know we are talking about thousands here, but if the opposite side drops at all then it is out by that much.