I thought my starter was not expanding out enough to grab the flywheel. I checked both the new starter and the one that was on the car and they both expand all the way out.

I checked the flywheel and the teeth look fine.

Now here's the tricky part; when I had the starter off, I would push on the teeth on the flywheel and I could spin it in both directions???

This is really strange. Could it be that only the outer portion of the flywheel that has the teeth broke off from the rest of the flywheel???

Any tips greatly appreciated. Thanks. BTW this is on a b16a with a stock flywheel as far as I know.