I just had this same problem, starter turning but not popping up to engage the flywheel. Just by chance I noticed that my battery terminals had become really corroded just over the last month. I took them apart and cleaned the Posts and the cable connectors really well and sprayed them with battery terminal protector. After that my starter began working again. Easy fix this time!!!

I would check the following (for safety's sake be sure to disconnect the negative- battery cable before doing the following) 1) The cable and clamps from the battery to the solenoid and the cable and clamps from the solenoid to the starter. Remove then and scrape/sand them clean and rub them down with a bit of WD-40 and reinstall. 2) Give the negative cable from the battery this same treatment. Be sure the chassis end of this cable has a good connection to BARE metal. 3)Make sure the solenoid is tightly anchored to the chassis. Ideally take it off an make sure there is bright shiny metal on the engine and solenoid to assure a good ground connection. Be sure to make the last connection point in reassembly is the - battery connection. Let us know if this helps, and we can give you the next steps if necessary.

UPDATE: The sillcock key did the trick. It was a 4-way cross configuration, with 1/4", 9/32", 5/16" and 11/32" square sockets. I tapped out the cross piece, to give me two tubular sockets, and found the 5/16 size would fit over the set screws. I was then able to place a piece of square section rod in the other end, and used a wrench to get the set screws out. They were not that tight, which makes sense with the alloy pulley they were tapped into. With some prying, I was able to get the pulley off, pull out the impeller shaft (woodruff key fell out with pulley), and remove the bearing assembly. The bearing itself, does not look to bad. I measured the internal diameter and the impeller shaft diameter, and have less than 1/32" of play (far less than the 1/8" Tomplum mentioned). I am still puzzled by the hex set screw in the bearing housing. The brass sleeve runs through the center of a ball, formed by two pressed steel hemispheres. This ball is retained by collars on the impeller housing, and can rotate to compensate for variations in position of the front auger gearbox. The set screw is in the overlap area of the two steel hemispheres, so it may simply be providing additional securing for holding the pieces together. I was also wondering if the assembly contained some sort lubricant, that was intended to permeate out and lubricate the bearing? Anyway, I was intending to check the front auger end bearings next, and then reassemble. I was thinking that some sort of lubricant would be beneficial on the support bearing. Normally, I would expect to use oil on a sleeve bearing but perhaps this application is different? It certainly wouldn't be too difficult to occasionally add a few drops of oil to the shaft on the pulley side of the bearing. I am open to your opinions and suggestions, based on your personal experience and knowledge. Thanks again for all the responses.

Update... I had a long talk with BF last night. It was a very difficult conversation in which he agreed with tears in his eyes that I was right and he was sorry that he didn't have money to buy me a ring as soon as he'd said he would. I told him that I was frustrated that we moved in together under one circumstance (getting engaged with a ring in February, which is what he had said) and because of unexpected increases in his bills and financial problems, and my own somewhat cold feet about potentially becoming a SM, things have been delayed and delayed. Although I am able to adapt to changing circumstances this is (a) embarrassing me in front of my friends and family and (b) making me feel like a hypocrite. As far as his side, he told me June, then September, then Christmas... I keep oscillating between hope and dread, and then thinking, fine, I don't want the stupid ring anyway, just forget the whole thing. So what if we get engaged? Because I am not marrying him with 5-figure debt anyway, and it will take him 2-3 years to get out of it, so we might as well just work on our conflict resolution skills and stick this out together. His finances are being reviewed by his new financial planner who is going to make a suggestion to him on a couple of different ways he could go as far as a combination of debt snowballing, debt reduction and debt consolidation this coming Friday afternoon. I looked at his monthly budget with him last night and I have to admit that even I was shocked. There are too many minimum payments per biweekly pay period that are just too high to squeeze all in - I honestly don't know how he has been making it, and we live together!! I am surprised he never tried to borrow money from me - but glad too that he is working it out on his own. Although I did consider moving out as something of a "motivational tool" for him to clean up his financial act, and showing him that I deserve better, I felt at the end that it would just make me materialistic and selfish. He already knows that I am at the end of my rope!! He offered to move out and continue paying rent and bills to the end of our lease, but in my heart that really wasn't what I wanted. I just want him to be honest and not overly-optimistic about his situation. He is in a bad place - some of it is his own fault, but not all. We do not have joint debt, we do not have children together, and I am getting done the things I need to do. It is not going to hurt me to stick by his side when in 90% of our relationship area he is doing great. Also, at the end of the day, he has been doing everything I have asked him to do, i.e. involve a professional or team of professionals because it is clearly beyond his realm. After much discussion, I decided that we should continue to live together, and work on getting mostly out from underneath our debt over the next year, and not discuss marriage or getting engaged again until that time. I just don't see it happening. By next year at this time I will be out of debt myself, other than student debt, and will begin saving for a house. If there has not been significant progress in his financial picture (his money management style as much as anything else) I told him that it will really be a dealbreaker for me. He was not thrilled with that but agreed. I know that he has been very humbled and embarrassed by all this, and frankly he put up with a lot of humiliation that a lot of guys wouldn't have. I said a lot of things I wanted to say, but I also said a couple of things that I should not have said, and I regret that - namely rubbing it in that he did everything for his first wife to have a big diamond and be a SAHM, and all I get is the debris that's left. He should have told me that was a cheap shot, and challenged me whether deep down I wanted to really set a date with or without a ring, but he just said he was sorry and that he understood whatever way I went. He has proposed to me 100 times, and still somehow I don't feel like it is settled. Summary: I'm either a victim, or I make a decision based on how it feels to live in my skin every day. So I made a decision. I didn't get much sleep last night.