Kill me now, please.

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72Valiant4Door

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I get the tranny in. Re worked k-member in. Struggled and finally got the engine in place and everything bolted up.

After a day or two break I come back and get my headers in place... i go to attach the fllexplate to the tranny, and I cannot turn over the motor...

I check everything I possibly can... the motor won't turn over. Spark plugs out. Check. Big cheater bar on the harmonic balancer. Check... I use way more force than I have to, and it turns a little, then nothing.

The motor ran great other than some blowby from weak piston rings. When I replaced the timing chain and oil pump, it was clean as hell, only a tiny bit of bs in it.


Then my wrench partner divulges that he pulled a cap (rod? main? who the **** knows) to check the bearings... and just tightened them the **** down.


Now I have an engine i can't turn over, and flexplate bolt I can't reach... and I am going to have to have someone more intelligent than me, solve the problem...

AFTER, I pull everything back out of the car...


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
^&$@

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sounds like you can live without the wrench partner.

The good thing about doing things solo is there no one else to blame, except maybe the cat.

Sorry to hear this, don't give up. Take a break and just start over...all anyone can do and before you know it, back in business.
 
Make sure you don't have long bolts in the crank pulley locking it down on the timing cover.
 
can you turn the motor with the flex plate disconnected ....maybe the toque converter is jammed or something wrong with the tans attachment.
 
The converter will come out with the engine if it has to just be careful. Then you can reach the bolt with a wrench.
 
can't get to the torque converter bolt to find out... i spent 2 hours trying to reach that last one that rotated. I was hoping like hell it was bound on the flexplate, until i commented that I never touched the rotating assembly and heard the bit about checking bearings.
 
Man.....I'm real sorry to hear that!
Don't pay someone else...if it's not your daily driver, take a deep breath, and a couple days off from it, and take it back apart.....
The old saying is so true:
"If it was easy, everyone would do it".....

Jeff
 
can't get to the torque converter bolt to find out... i spent 2 hours trying to reach that last one that rotated. I was hoping like hell it was bound on the flexplate, until i commented that I never touched the rotating assembly and heard the bit about checking bearings.

I had the impression you discovered the locked motor when you were attaching the flex plate in the assembly phase. I might be backwards.
 
it turned a little but took way too much effort before it was completely bound, that bit of rotation put the tq conver bolts out of reach
 
Tell your wrenching buddy to get his but over there (be sure to have him pick up an oil pan gasket on the way over) and pull the pan
Loosen and properly torque each cap, reinstall oilpan and run it
 
Ok, look.

You are going to have to tear the engine down anyway, why not just pull the pan and do what you need to do to free up the crank and THEN pull the converter bolts
 
This doesn't sound like a hand tightened cap to me.
More like a not seated converter, or a flex plate bolt hitting the block.

Or maybe your buddy just put the cap nuts in the spark plug holes thinking it would be fine as long as they were inside the motor. :D
Sorry, couldn't help myself.
 
I am hearing that you installed the motor and you installed the trans with the converter seated. Now you are attempting to turn the motor over to align the flex plate bolts to the converter, and in doing so found out that the motor won't turn.

If I am hearing that correctly, then I think the only thing to do is to unbolt the flexplate from the trans and pull the motor and check out the bearings. To me that seems like an awful lot of torque on those main cap bolts to prevent the crank from turning.
 
I got all of the flexplate bolts out... removed the oil pain, oil pump, and loosened all the main caps a tiny bit, and while I can move it, it still requires waaaay too much force, and i can directly compare it to a identical junk motor sitting in this garage.
 
Then it's time to loosen the rod caps
You did mention you were unsure which caps he messed with
 
Tell your wrenching buddy to get his but over there (be sure to have him pick up an oil pan gasket on the way over) and pull the pan
Loosen and properly torque each cap, reinstall oilpan and run it


If were my friend he would never touch it again...in fact he would be an "ex- friend"
 
I loosened all the main caps and connecting rod caps... it was much easier to move.... then i torqued them... super duper ******* hard to rotate again.
 
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