u/ImMissing2Strings

Hey everyone, recently bought me a nice little Ranger and I’ve been trying to get it back to life lately. Currently the starter grinds horrendously and is the next project. When looking online I’ve seen things say that the starters are different between manual and automatic transmissions (mine is manual). So my question is basically is that true and how can you tell the difference? All part stores around me say that there is nothing showing what kind of transmission the starters are for.

(Also my hope is the guy who had the truck previously bought an automatic starter without doing research)

Sorry if this post is stupid but I’m new to the mechanic world.