Anyone replace flex plate on 3800 s3?

[Stocked88]

Looking for any advice you can give. Bought the car thinking it was Valve noise like a collapsed lifter and after driving it a day I decided to try marvel mystery oil (a lot of people suggested) and it proved no help, so I pulled the front valve cover and was bumping the engine over by the solenoid under the hood to get the valves closed to check play there before pulling the back one and it started cranking hard making a weird while cranking, finally when I got to a certain point the starter just grinds which led me to the theory that the flex plate is cracked/broken. I haven’t had enough time off of work to pull the starter to look up in there too 100% verify but I’m fairly sure that’s what it is. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Stocked88

[White93z34]

I've done a few of those over the years.

2 options, pull transmission or pull engine.

Personally, I'd just yank the engine out the top, slap a new one on and put it back in the hole.

It would be a fantastic time to do an oil pan gasket and to check timing cover gasket while its out.