Alright, a little bit of a weird problem here. My friend jsut bought a new/refurb Chevy 350 engine for his 82 berlinetta. We've got the whole engine in, along with the tranny, but need to get the engine crank rotated just a little bit to line up some stuff, and bolt the torque converter all the way down. Just for some information, this engine has never been run, and we took the spark plugs back out to relieve any compression in the cylinders. We've tried turning it from the bolt that holds the crankshaft pulley and harmonic balancer down, but nothing, we've had it all the way down and it dosent want to budge. Someone suggested we get under it and try to turn it by the flywheel with our hands! At this point we're ready to try almost anything but bumping the starter with 12v. Any help or suggestions would be awesome.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

 

Get a flywheel turner and try to rotate the engine. If you can't then you have some problems. If the engine won't rotate with a flywheel turner, then squirt liberal amounts of kerosene into the spark plug holes and let it sit overnight. If it still won't turn by hand then loosen up all the rocker arms to relieve the pressure off the valvetrain and make it a little easier to rotate. How long has this engine been sitting? Do you know if the rebuilder was reputable? If the engine builder is someone local you may want to ask them if they used any type of moly lube or other lubricant on the cylinder walls knowing that the engine would sit a while and wouldn't want rust to seize the rings to the walls. Unbolt the torque convertor also from the flywheel when doing this.

 

The engine hasnt been sitting long. We were able to move it slightly once whlie we were bolting the flywheel down to the crankshaft in the back. I guess we'll just unbolt the tranny and torque converter and try again. Also, is there any trick to removing the driveshaft from the tranny? it's a single piece driveshaft connected to a TH350. We removed it the first time by just pulling the engine out with the tranny attached. came right out and we set it on our plastic oil drain pan. What's the trick to doing it without removing the whole assembly again? lol. Thanks for your help.

 

Damn 350's they always give ya trouble.
it's prolly binding. or you bent a stud on the torque converter.
i've had that done. i try to aviod 350's
im a 305,327,335,400,409,427 guy myself. me and 350's and 383's don't get along well,but my gta has a 350tpi.doin well so far but i got my doubt's as to how long it will last.