I have an '84 4x4 4spd with almost 200,000 miles on it. I replaced the starter on it about 3 months ago, due to a nasty high pitched grinding noise that occurred at every start. Now, the new starter was never quiet, but about a week ago it started with an even more nasty grinding noise, with the starter giving up completely just today. Question: are shims needed, how can in tell if its my flywheel causing the initial problem, and is it as big of a pain to pull the tranny/transfer case to replace the flywheel, as it appears to be?

 

Well it depends on your idea of what a "pain" is,............
But yes you do need to remove gear shift and then remove transmission and transfercase to get to the flywheel.

You can inspect the ring gear by remove the "inspection cover" under the bellhousing, see if it is worn too much, find a picture of a newer one to compare what "worn" is.

Not sure if it applies to the 2.0l series but many starter motors have different setups for manual trans and automatic, because of the difference from flywheel to flexplate ring gears.