It may not be going bad. It may be that the bolts holding the starter have loosened a bit and the alignment of the starter and the flywheel is off.
Glad it wasnt a bad one!after checking it out yesterday, the starter wasn't being held on by anything, i did find the broken bolt on the ground under the truck. both the holes have broken off bolts in them. working on extracting them now. what a PITA.