jonm1a1

I just finished my first rebuild and I have a few questions.

1. the engine became super hard to turn after putting on the last piston. I plastiguaged them all plus the crank. I had to use a cheater pipe to turn it. Is that normal. torqued everything down correctly used to torq wrenches scared one might had been off a little bit.

2. anyone have a diagram for the electrical I labeled everything but it faded off I guess wrong kind of marker.


289 engine bored .060 over new everything. 1965 block

67mustang302

You should be able to turn it by hand with a wrench. You didn't have the spark plugs in did you?

Did you only plastigauge the bearings? All of them, main and rod? What pistons, what piston to wall clearance, what rings/gap etc?

Boogie's_AutoRama

When I was a kid, my Dad taught me to turn the crank two revs after any moving part was installed. If it started to bind you knew exactly where the problem was.

Looks like you'll need to do a partial tear down until you find out what the problem is.

Even with the spark plugs in you shouldn't need a cheater pipe to turn it over.
And I would advise not to continue to do that. It may be scarring something up.





.

jonm1a1

Yeah I tore it down turns easy. The last piston must have been shifted or something it turns now.

67mustang302

You need to find out exactly why....and makes sure it doesn't remain an issue.

barnett468

you can't plasti guage pistons for clearance.

your piston did not shift there is no such thing.

might have been an improperly seated bearing.

it would take a lot of torque on the bolt to make the rod tighten up on the crank.

recheck the bearing clearance, piston float on the pin and as mentioned above, the ring and piston clearance etc.

TexasAxMan

Do yourself a favor and find someone to look at it with you. I'm guessing you have a fair amount of coin tied up here, and a bad startup will only cost you more.

jonm1a1

Lol when I said I plasticguaged the pistons I mean the rod caps. But no one ever post the out come and what they found that fixed the problem. I had 2 different issues didn't realize the last one till I took out the engine.
1. 2 rod caps where on backwards once I changed them the engine came extremely easy to turn over.
2. Something I didn't know any better.. My flex plat(plate that divides engine and tranny. was bent I thought by putting the tranny and engine together it would straighten it out. The issue was it was bent so bad it was catching the flywheel and making it hard to turn.

67mustang302

Making sure bearing caps are on right is CRITICAL. Bearing cap location and orientation determines how the bearing is crushed, so if they're wrong, the bearings will be non concentric and clamp (typically) down on the crank.

If you ever open an engine and they caps aren't marked, mark them before you remove them.

barnett468

A flex plate is the starter gear and torque converter mounting plate for an auto. The plate you are referring to is called a mid engine plate.