ok, so I rebuilt my 2.8 myself and its ready to go back in my car, but the thing is that the motor seems "tight" I have tried turning it over with a pry bar where the flywheel bolts to (and it turns) but as soon as I bolt the flywheel up and test the starter to see if it cranks it just engages, the starter works fine and is new. battery is charged, I believe something is too tight. I pulled off the connecting rod caps and thuroughly lubed them (they were a little "dry") and put everything back together. the starter still wont turn over the engine.

what to do? what to do? I need help, I told my boss to let me off work until I can take care of this but its being a major pain.

This can easily happen if your cylinders are too dry. Pull the plugs, stick a couple ounces of motor oil in every cylinder, and roll it over again with the plugs out. If after a single turn or two it gets easier, you'll know. If your Fiero is a stick you can simply push start it. I've seen this a time or two. Did you install the pistons dry? If so, it will need to rotate a bit with oil in the cylinders untill some of the new friction starts to seat in.

How tight is it with the bar and are you really sure the starter will work under load? Larry

Two things:

1) squirt oil in the cylinders, as described above
2) Leave the spark plugs out, and turn the engine over a bit. First, do it by hand, to make sure nothing is binding (and to spread around the oil you just put in). Then, use the starter (with a battery charger attached, for some extra power).

When it gets to the point where it turns easily with the starter, put the spark plugs back in and try to start it.

That said, there are no guarantees. For example, my 3.4 was so tight that the stock Fiero starter couldn't turn it over after it warmed up, even after break-in. I had to switch to a gear reduction starter.

You do need to be careful that the problem is not being caused by new mains or rod bearings that are too tight. If you can easily rotate it with the starter by taking the torque off (loosening) these bolts, that's a whole nuther game.

Did you remember to put the spacer(shim) between the starter and the block? I'm not sure exactly what would happen with it left off but that could make it not turn over.

Did you pre lube the engine?
Take out the distributor and use a socket and
an electric drill to drive the oil pump shaft. Then
everything is freshly oiled for startup.

Sounds like something is way too tight - a fresh rebuild should not be hard to turn over.

With the plugs out you should be able to turn the crank with a rachet on the balancer bolt while the motor is on the stand.

Did you lube everything with engine assembly lube during assembly?

Did you turn the crank after assembling the bottom end, but before installing the cam?

Did it rotate easily?

Did you try to turn it after the camshaft installation?

Was it easy to turn over then as well?

What proceedure did you use to set valve lash?

What were the measured clearances between the crank journals and caps?

Did you allow for the proper gap on the installed piston rings?

Did you clean out the ring grooves on the pistons prior to installing the new rings?

Did you have to file any of the rings to achieve proper installed gaps?

All of these questions are asked, as each one of these items can cause undue friction when cranking the engine.

Just for fun I put a torque wrench on the crank of my freshly built 3.1, LS1 springs and flat tappet cam, takes 20 Ft. Lbs to turn it. What does yours take? Larry

[This message has been edited by trotterlg (edited 10-05-2011).]

Also, if the engine is too hard to turn you can burn up the starter very easily. Be careful. Do like mentioned, try a wrench on the crankpulley. If you cant move it, then you have other problems, but you may have also fried the starter.

ive had starters do this before, once was actually right after a rebuild just like you.. they spin but dont have any actual force or torque. put the starter in a bench vise and make sure its extremely secure. as soon as u have a buddy hook a good battery up to it- jam the end of a 2x4 into the side of the starters gear teeth, should chew the wood up pretty darn good, if u can stall the starter with the 2x4 its a bad starter. dont leave the starter on very long though, because if it is good, u dont want to burn it up testing it

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Anson Craig

I've seen engines fresh that were very hard to turn over because while priming the carb the fuel washed the cylinder walls down. I'd be willing to bet it just needs some oil getting around the pistons to slick it up some.

did you ajust the rock arms to tight.If so that would make the engine hard to turn over. Thanks

Hope you locate your issue soon. Past experience from rebuilding; I had a engine in which I had over torqued a main bearing cap; which in turn would not allow crank to even rotate; issue resolved & bingo. Let us know.

Sounds to me like you installed a connecting rod or two wrong. if you install them flipped 180* it puts the chamfered edges of the rod bearings facing each other ( respectively the two rods that share the same journal). the chamfers of the rod bearings need to face opposit each other on the rods that share a journal. I did this on my V8 built and tried turn turn it by hand and was like WTF ! found my mistake. The rods are notched for the bearing tab,if the rod is installed on the piston wrong it'll be backwards basically.i'll see if i can get a pic of some 3800 rods and bearing tomorrow, that'll explain it better.

Drew this up real quick on paint hope it helps.



When its installed in the bad position the bearing pinches the radius on the crank journal causing it to be hard to rotate.

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ARCHIES JUNK IS FASTER THAN SHAUNNA'S JUNK
12.3 is faster than a 13.2

[This message has been edited by FIEROPHREK (edited 10-05-2011).]

Good thought, FIEROPHREK - that's an easy mistake to make and not an easy one to find when you're looking for the problem.

Thinking about what Riddick85 said.

When I rebuilt my 86 2.8, I missed putting the spacer shim between the flywheel and engine, and the counterbalance on the flywheel contacted the block. There really is a small amount of clearance there. check the shim. If it's contacting, there is a good chance it will not turn.

Jay

Ok, so during assembly the crank rotated fine, nothing was ever installed dry. *DONT EVER INSTALL DRY*
I tried all the oil tricks.
I think there is a problem with the connecting rod bearings being too tight. I got a crank kit so I figured I had matched bearings.
I did the whole loosening of the bearing caps and tried to rotate the engine over and it all turned easy. but after I torqued everything down it got tight again.
I did pre oil the engine, but the amount of lube I used during assembly should have been fine.

what about the connecting rods? how they need to face away from eachother?

And the spacer piece on the flywheel goes in between the crank and flywheel?

did you plastigage the rods and mains could have wrong bearings

could have installed caps wrong

when you removed rod caps did you mark them?

make sure all surfaces are super clean

have to be bearing prob if when you tighten down bearings and gets tight

no I did not plastigauge the bearings... so I feel dumb now. like I said they came in a crank kit. so I didnt worry. now I am paying the price... everything is clean, lol. the mains are fine but the connecting rod bearings are what seem to be the problem.

When I do the rod bearings, I torque them down and then see if I can move the rods back and forth on the journal a little, properly done you can move them by hand a little and tell if they are bound up. Larry

If you have any doubts about whether the rods caps are on correctly..........the grooves (where the tangs on the rod bearings fit) in the rod and cap will sit on top of each other. Or at least this is the case with most engines.

My guess is a rod is in backwards and locking down the crankshaft.............

facepalm. XD well if its any consolation, only one of the rods wiggled side to side. I will check on this sometime tomorrow.

Starter Shim use...
See cave, starter in starter section.

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Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurassic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave (It's also at the top and bottom of every forum page...)

Did you keep the pistons in the same cylinders they came out of?

Did you keep the main caps in order?

Did you keep the rod/endcaps as matched sets?

Is the dot in the dish of the piston toward the water pump end of the motor?

The side play on each crank journal should be OK if the pistons were kept in the same cylinders.

If the pistons were mixed up, you need to sort the as to left bank and right bank (look for the chamfered side of the rod bearing, when all of the piston dots face forward, you should have 3 chamfered bearings facing the rear, and 3 facing forward), and then start putting pairs together on the journals until each journal/rod pair has the proper side clearance.

I do not have access to the side clearances as I post this, sorry.

If you ordered a crank kit, the bearings should be matched to the crank, but sometimes mistakes are made. If you still have the crank box and bearing box, they should both be marked.

While you have the bottom end back apart, check ring end gap on all of the rings, and be sure you have the main caps in oreder.

If the rod end caps somehow got mixed up, you can usually match the rod to the cap by looking at the machining marks on the side of the rod and cap - they will line up perfectly.

It can be done - one of my kids knocked over a table that had a completely disassembled SBC on it and completely mixed up everything - but it went back together and ran for years.

Keep us posted.

Joe

quote Originally posted by FIEROPHREK: If you install them flipped 180* it puts the chamfered edges of the rod bearings facing each other ( respectively the two rods that share the same journal). the chamfers of the rod bearings need to face opposit each other on the rods that share a journal. I did this on my V8

You're hot on the right path but this can't be his problem because the 60 degree V6 has separate journals for each connecting rod, unlike the 90 deg V8 which as you mentioned has a pair of rods per journal. Just the same, If I recall correctly, the connecting V6 rods aren't symmetrical and are offset slightly to one end. That means that each rod has a forward and rearward face that must be observed during re-installation or they will bind. I thought I had a photo of the correct orientation of the rods, but I don't. Perhaps someone else has a picture you can compare the orientation of your rods to.

BTW: The side clearance for the rods is 0.16 - 0.44 mm's.
The axial bearing clearance for the rods is 0.035 - 0.095 mm's.

quote Originally posted by tuggajb: did you plastigage the rods and mains could have wrong bearings could have installed caps wrong when you removed rod caps did you mark them? make sure all surfaces are super clean have to be bearing prob if when you tighten down bearings and gets tight

I go for the first two statements here.

quote Originally posted by Bloozberry: You're hot on the right path but this can't be his problem because the 60 degree V6 has separate journals for each connecting rod, . . . .

I just pulled apart a 2.8 i had sitting around and noticed this. The 2.8's connecting rods do not share a journal.


Your best bet is to remove one connecting rod cap at a time and inspect the bearing to see if it is maked with an oversize dimension. Then measure the corrosponding journal to see if the bearing matched the jounal diameter. Or like what was said before, use some plastiguage. Hang in there you'll figure it out.

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ARCHIES JUNK IS FASTER THAN SHAUNNA'S JUNK
12.3 is faster than a 13.2

quote Originally posted by olejoedad: If the pistons were mixed up, you need to sort the as to left bank and right bank (look for the chamfered side of the rod bearing, when all of the piston dots face forward, you should have 3 chamfered bearings facing the rear, and 3 facing forward), and then start putting pairs together on the journals until each journal/rod pair has the proper side clearance.

This would be an invalid statement. I was thinking that the bottom end shared journals like a SBC.
What was I thinking - I even had a 2.8 apart last week!
My bad. Apologies all around......

Joe

[This message has been edited by olejoedad (edited 10-09-2011).]

When you get this figured out, you'd better get new bearings. The ones you had in with the engine tight are probably damaged. Besides, my guess is that the bearings are the wrong size anyway (wrong size for the grind on the crank).

I will rip into this monday morning.

I didn't see an answer, but yes, on the 2.8 the spacer goes between the flywheel and the crank. for the GT, the P&S guide lists this part as a "Flywheel spacer".

When using a 2.5 Duke, it is used on the outside of the flywheel and is listed as a "Flywheel retainer". Let me know if you want pics of this....

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Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival. - W. Edwards Deming

Jay Brintnell
Southern Ontario Fiero Association and the Ontario Pontiac Club

ok, I took the caps off and the pistons have room to wiggle, the bearings are standard size, not oversized, the crankshaft is a remanufactured one, and here are two pictures showing how the caps went on. the left of the photos are the front of the block and the right is the back of the block.





I dont know what to do, all the rods look like they were installed correctly (unless they were all installed backwards)
and the caps also match to the piston connecting rods.

I don't know of any way to "remanufacture" a crank, and have it still standard size. Unless there's a way to add material to it.
In any case, get a good micrometer and measure your journals. Something is not right.

well... either they just polished my crank because it didnt need to be re-ground, or they sent me a new one in under a "remanufactured" label. it came with standard bearings, so that means if it was re ground then the standard bearings should fit a tad loose, I would think*