Locked up???

[soobrdad02]

Just wanted to know if there was a way to tell for sure that the engine has finally bit the dust. I just finished pulling the engine and switching out flex plates on my 2.2 4EAT automatic Legacy (the old flex plate cracked and broke into 2 pieces) and now that the engine is re-installed I can't get it to start. I'm jumping it off of the wife's car and when I turn the key I hear a "click" and then nothing. I've pulled the plugs and tried turning the crank with a looooong breaker bar and I can't get it to budge. Is this the end of my car???

[BSOD2600]

Click... sure the starter is good? bang on it a few times in case there are bad contact spots.

Breaker bar... which direction are you trying to turn it?

[soobrdad02]

I had the starter checked about a month ago and it was a-okay. As for the breaker bar, I've been turning the crank pulley clock-wise.

[Legacy777]

Will it turn at all in the other direction? Did you try and turn the motor over at all by hand when it was out of the car?

How did you put in and tighten the flex plate bolts to the torque converter if the engine doesn't turn over?

[soobrdad02]

The difficulty in turning the engine didn't seem to occur until the last 1/8th or so of a turn of the crank when I was installing the flex-plate bolts. As for attempting to turn the engine counter-clockwise, I didn't think that was something that we were supposed to do, like crossing the streams.

[Legacy777]

It's not a big deal. You've got nothing to lose at this point.

It sounds like something may be binding up, so I would try rotating it the other way.

[soobrdad02]

That doesn't sound promising in the least...

[soobrdad02]

I pulled the first flexplate-to-torque converter bolt and managed to muscle the crank enough (with the help of a breaker-bar) to remove the remaining bolts. Now that it's un-bolted I can turn the crank easily (it seems to encounter one "tight spot" at the end of a rotation). So does this mean that it was an un-seated torque converter all along, and if it was, will I be able to pull the engine again, re-seat the torque converter and put it all back together without worry?

[Legacy777]

You can try pulling the motor and reseating the torque converter, but I have that the pump at the end of the torque converter shaft can be fragile and be damaged if the motor is bolted up.

I'm going to move your thread to the drivetrain forum as it may get some more attention there by some of the folks who have run across this issue before.

[soobrdad02]

Awesome, thanks!