Murphy's law strikes again!! I got a "low mile" (28K) 2002 Ford Taurus 3.0 Duratech motor that I'm going to use for my 2001 Escape. Well, things have hit quite a snag! I got the new timing cover and oil pan gaskets on and was getting ready to start putting on the alternator, power steering pump, etc. to start installing the engine back in and for the hell of it decided to turn the engine over by the crank bolt and it wouldn't turn over more than 1/4 turn in either direction!! It would not turn at all as if it was hitting something internally keeping it from turning past that 90 degrees or so. Now this is a used engine and it did turn freely way back 2 months or so ago when I checked it out when I bought it so I'm thinking "what exactly did I screw up??" So me being the worry-wort that I am I pulled off the timing cover and oil pan thinking a bolt had dropped in it somewhere or I had left a wrench in it or something stupid but it looked fine. I took the windage tray and oil pump pickup off too and all looked fine. Then I took the timing chains off of the crank pulley and the engine was still not turning over all the way. Now I'm thinking that something is wrong in the valvetrain so I took off the timing chains/tensioners, etc. and the cams out of one of the heads as well as the head itself. At that point the engine would turn over a lot more but not 360 degrees. So then I took off the other cams and head and then the engine would turn over as much as possible in both directions.

So was I just fighting the valve springs-lifters on 4 cams when the engine was fully assembled? I wonder if the lifters were sticking/seized due to the engine not running in a long time? I went over to my old engine with the head gasket/possible warped heads/block issue and it spun over like butter. I'm wondering if the timing was off on the used engine and maybe some piston-valve interference was going on?

I'm thinking too that maybe this was all just a big waste of time and the engine may have started up just fine once I got it in the car and used the starter to crank it.

Any ideas?

C.R.