Yesterday I got the crank, rods and piston all put together. It turned just fine. Today I drop on the heads, installed the cam, lifters, pushrods, and rocker arms. Now when I try to turn the crank- it won't. After I installed the valve train, I THEN read in the instructions (I got from a Ford website) that I was supposed to ensure the timing mark was at the 11 o'clock postion. I noticed I installed everything when it was at the 2 o'clock position. I've rebuilt a Ford 390 and Chevy 350, and never had to put the crank at a certain position so I didn't think I had to until I read it. So could that cause my binding? The only other thing that could even come close to stopping the crank from turning is the HPOP gear and LPOP, both I'm pretty damn sure I put on correctly.

Also, since I installed head (and bottom) studs, the damn injectors won't seat properly, even with the shorter of the studs next to the sticks. Don't I have to grind some meat off the injector hold down bracket or something? Also there are two different hold down bolts, am I correct in using the shorter one toward the intake, and the longer one toward the exhaust?

I'd really appreciate any help on this. My entire body is sore and I am just sick and tired of not having my truck to drive. Here's a preview of what it's looking like so far, getting hter but I still got a bunch to do....

 

Your engine looks great! Sorry no answers here. There does not seem to be a lot of activity tonight. Have a beer and hopefully you will get some advice.

 

Danny I like Red but DAM thats alot!! SWEET sorry I cant help with your problem.

 

If it's too far out of time it could be that a piston is hitting a vavle

 

Shouldn't be a timing issue, I lined up the little "o" timing marks on the crank and cam gears.

 

pull the vavle cover's off and while trying to spin the eng touch the vavles and try to fill for any movment

 

why would you do that?

 

it's an easy to make sure the piston isn't hitting the vavles

 

Were the dots aligned after the cam gear was seated and plate bolted down? Were they engaged together allowing for the rotation of the angled teeth as it seated?

 

Danny, are you saying you cannot even turn it over with a socket on the crank? Does it have the GPs and injectors installed? Even so, you should be able to turn it, just a lot tougher. If not, you have a problem. If you cannot turn it over there is no need to proceed because you will surely break something.

 

Could it be 180* out ?

 

Not if dots lined up properly. Maybe one tooth off.

 

After putting all those mentioned in post #1 it didn't turn at all ? You should have felt at least some movement. If it didn't turn at all some thing is binding, gears look okay ? Even if the piston was hitting the head you should have felt a little movement an then lock.

Oh by the way the engine looks good . I will be doing an engine project sometime in the future. As soon as I get my shop done then my trucks will get the attention they need.

 

Did you deck the block and now the pistons stick up too far?

 

I got lucky and read the 11 o'clock thing before I put mine together or I would have done the same thing. I do know of a 5 cylinder engine that we service that has some crazy method of installing the rockers or it will lock up. I believe the theory for this is the same. With primed hyd liters your valves move when u tighten the hold downs even if they are supposed to be closed because there is no valve lash on these engines, so I imagine that the 11 o'clock position has all pistons at a safe place to allow valve movement. You would think though that after a few minutes the lifters would bleed down and you could turn it again.