rebuilt engine seized at startup
 

First startup on my new 2.7l rebuild. Crank, fires, runs for a second or so. Crank again, huge backfire. Now won't crank. Putting a wrench on the crank pulley, I find I can't move the crank in either direction. Maybe it can move a 1/16 in or so before hitting something solid.

It stopped coming up on compression on #1, so I thought maybe a stuck fuel injector had hydro locked the cylinder with fuel. Pulled the spark plug, no luck.

I removed the starter in case it was stuck. Releasing the clutch doesn't free the crank. so its not in the starter or tranny. I pulled the upper valve covers and the cam positions look sane. I mean, they could be off a tooth and I couldn't tell, but approximately the right cylinders have their intake valves coming up.

Hmmm.

I used the pressure fed tensioners in the rebuild, and carefully bled them as in Wayne's book, so that they were nice and firm before they went in the engine.

What are good next steps to diagnose this? I'm thinking drain the oil and pull the lower valve covers to look for broken rockers, then slack all the valve adjusters and see if that frees the crank. Yuk, hell of a way to start out.

Did you pull all spark plugs?

Okay. It may be something minor, so let's walk through the process.

- Pull the plugs
- Pull the upper and lower valve covers
- Loosen up all of the upper and lower rockers (this may help prevent further damage).
- Don't use the starter again
- Pull the distributor

Only being able to move 1/16th in either directly is a bit odd. Usually, you can turn it back if you've hit something. Perhaps there's a nut or something in there causing some interference?

Pull the plugs and try to turn the engine over and let us know what happens...

-Wayne

christ. My thoughts are with you at this uncertain time.

Andy

BTW, did you spin the motor over on the starter without the plugs in until you saw oil pressure before you tried to start it?

did the case get align bored? could you turn the crank easily by hand after torquing up the case studs/nuts?

No answer - I guess he's home either scratching his head, or getting out the large breaker bar...

-Wayne

I really wanted to hear the outcome of this one. Hope it turned into something simple.

The good question already posed is: did you crank it over many times to build oil pressure before putting the plugs in etc?

If you did then what I'm about to say doesn't apply.

I had a situation where one of the pressure plate bolts was too long and was hanging up on the case. It must have been a fastener that got in the mix somehow. It prevented me for turning over the engine.

Tristan

I just sent Steve a email. Perhaps he has his posting notifications turned off. Im dying to know what happen.