All right guys,

First I want to thank all those who have given up so much time (as well as tools/garage space in Shaun's case) to help me with the motor.

After fixing the grounds and plug wires, the car still won't fire. The motor WILL NOT turn over by hand cranking on the hub bolt, and the starter motor nearly stalls when it tries to turn it. This is on a fully charged battery and also during a jump start on top of the battery. This is why my ground strap was getting so hot that it smoked.

We pulled all the plugs, and the motor is still very hard to turn over by hand, about as hard as my stock motor was with all the plugs in. In addition, we can hear a squeeking noise when we turn the crank by hand, not sure what that could be.

Not sure what will happen next - I need some LT1 experts to step up and show me the light . Thank god I have another car to drive for the next week (but not after that).

 

the squeeking / hissing noise is normal as ur cylinders are compressing and letting go

who did ur rockers ?! if the engine is really hard to turn . i would suggest double checking the rockers... did you follow the book !? are there any loose ones !? double check those .. thats my opinion

wish i could be there to help

maybe if u havent gotten it down by tomorrow night i'll drop by again

call me up and let me know

 

you did put oil in it right

 

yep. here is a more detailed description of the problem:


One thing I noticed was that even with roller rockers adjusted and valve events occuring, the engine will NOT turn over by hand using the hub. I apply around 100 lb/ft to the hub bolt and she won't turn so i stop there before breaking anything. the starter motor nearly stalls even with a charged battery and a jump start boosting it.

So, we took the plugs out to remove all compression. the motor will NOT turn by hand, only with about 40-50 lb/ft of force on a torque wrench. we also hear a mild squeeking noise for about 90 degrees of a 360 degree turn of the crank.

I was under the impression that with no compression the motor should spin fairly easily using hands on the balancer?

the crank is a callies magnum and the hub is a 1-piece fluidampr. Could we have messed up putting the fluidampr on?

Finally, this motor has not been run for about 16 months.... could this cause a problem making the motor very stiff to turn over? could the starter itself affect how the motor turns by hand?

what the heck could cause a used motor to be so hard to turn over without compression? there was no rust visibly in the cylinders....

 

one more thing i just thought of

what if ur starter is somehow "mangled" and is holding ur flywheel !??!

maybe u should try to take out the starter then turn the motor by hand

cant think of any way that a starter would "jam" itself , the noid could stick i suppose and keep the starter gear on the flywheel ... its just another thing to try ...

 

interesting... we did hear some "interesting" noises coming from the starter....

I asked a similar question but we never checked it out since this should never happen....

 

I am going to try and make it out there tommorow or whenever you plan on tackling this again, just let me know and i will be there. There has yet to be a lt1 that could confuse me so trust me i will figure yours out also
Later
Mike

 

This is silly, but just a remark... are you SURE about your rocker ratio?

Did you buy 1.6's or 1.7's? Of course you'd know to break in a cam with 1.5's if you want to run 1.7's.

The point of this is that I have a buddy that bought 1.6's. They were stamped with the part number of a set of 1.6's. But they were actually 1.7's. They didn't figure that out until after cracking 2 cams and spending several thousand dollars. I can't remember which comany they were from but it was one of the big ones. Crane I think. They sent him a set of 1.6's and didn't pick up the tab for the rest of the damage caused by the mess up. Or atleast they haven't since I last heard about it. He was still arguing with them over it.

Anyway, moral of the story, even if stamped with the number of what you bought, check everything you can. If one big company can screw up with it's top end products, who knows what can be in your engine!

 

Just on the side note, the motor turned over fine when I was there, probably the starter, that big big starter you have there

 

could the flywhell be rubbing on something?

 

my starter was all messed up after my cam install
i just removed it and added it back in there again and it worked no problems?
maybe give taht a shot?

 

I hope you are getting some where because it does not sound good!.

You guys are out in left field with rockers this and that. even if they are hitting the valve most times motor will turn over fine.

find where the sounds are coming from.

Mike should be able to help alot.

If Bunker had not said it turned over fine before I would have guessed contact inside the motor.

Start by pulling the starter. If that does not help i would pull the trans next to look at fly wheel and check if it turns over yet. After that you arew most likely headed inside the motor.

Good luck!

 

If its an automatic, was the torque converter 'spun' into engagement with the trans? Saw that once...

 

it's a manual tranny.... we put the tranny on outside the car and we think it's ok.....

Matt may be onto something with the starter, I will try pulling it and see.

Mike if you want to come over in the evening today we can do it.... I can't get there until 6 or so though.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help.

One last thing Matt and I were talking about is the possibility that the is no lube in the cylinders, so maybe the rings with no oil are making it hard to turn the motor over. is this likely?

 

I cannot say I agree with this comment. I have been there for just about every start and have always felt that the motor was really labouring to turn. That being said a question for Craig and Cory.

When we took all plugs out and the rockers off, the starter did seem to get the motor turning a lot easier did it not?

I would also add that Cory and I sat under the car and turned the crank with the torque wrench at the end of the evening and for about 90 degrees of the turn, there is a squeak, almost like a rubbery, squeaking noise. Of course one can never be sure, but it sounded to me that it was on the drivers side and at the middle part of the engine - as oppossed to the front / hub area.

Remember that when we FIRST started the motor we did have spark and fuel - although 2 plug wires were wrong - but it did not want to catch. We got a few backfires through the intake but I assume that was the plug wire problem.

Thats about all I can add.