Pants is probly the oil I put down... I tried turning anti clockwise a bit to see if I could loosen it to turn it clockwise but the pulley bolt just untightens :(

If the plugs are out, the starter is off, it's out of gear, and the plugs are intact...

Then the final logical conclusion is that valves have got frisky with the pistons.

TT

so how do i loosen it so it'll crank?

Depends why it won't turn over. If like TT says the valves have hit the pistons you could be looking at a head rebuild. It must be pretty stuck if you can undo the crank bolt when trying to turn it anti clockwise, using I assume only a ratchet.

Was the timing correct when you put the head back on after you had your 'big leak'?

I would say your only option now is to drain any coolant out of the engine, and take the head off again. If you can turn the engine over by hand with the head off, you know that the problem is with the head / timing. If it won't turn over even with the head off, the bottom end has seized up for some reason.

You need to be careful and methodical when rebuilding the engine and getting it to start, as you could soon end up with a big engine shaped paper weight!!

Ug I was hoping there was a way to sort it without taking the head off again, but 3rd time lucky maybe.. As far as I know the timing was setup ok when I put it back together, the woodrow key (bit that sticks out) was pointing due north so to speak in line with the oil pump line on the block and camshaft pulley was also pointed due north with the small triangle inside one of the circles pointed at the dot on the head. Once I get the head off what am I looking for? I hoping the bottom end will turn over by hand ok leaving the head to deal with. It just seems strange that it was spinning over fine until I put the new spark plugs in and tried to turn it over again when it then jammed :(

Have you ever gave it a good hand crank? the engine i mean :D

has it been rebuilt by you or just a donor engine thats been sat for a while?

Ive been told to put cola down bores before, to free up stuck rings!?!?! might be worth a go?

If the bottom end turns over once the head is off the next thing to do is see if the cam will turn in the head.

If it does you could try just resetting the timing and refit the head. If you had a valve spring compressor you could take the valves out and check none are bent.

Yup it was cranking fine by hand and electrically up until I put the new plugs in after putting a bit of oil down each plug hole as suggested by someone else earlier in this thread.

It's the donor engine and all I've done to it is put a new head gasket on it, shorten the sump, put bike carbs on it, and I'm trying new plugs at the moment.

Not sure I want to put anything else down just yet as putting the oil down seems to have caused the problem as it was cranking fine before that :(

Hopefully like you say it'll be ok with the head off and I'll be able to hand crank them seperately. I don't have a valve compressor, how much is one of these and how difficult is it to take them out? Also will I need to put a new head gasket on doing this or should I be ok re-using the semi-new one now?

You should really be using a new head gasket and head bolts everytime you take them out.
The valves are easy to do. You will need a cranked end valve compressor something like the below. The flat ended ones won't work on 1.8 cvh.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sealey-Valve...e m43a29ca2c4

Putting oil down the bores should not be causing any problems, even if you did over do it by taking out the plugs and spinning it over the excess would just pump out. The fact that it wont turn anti clock or clockwise means there is something jammed up. It might not even be related to the engine, there could be a stray bolt jammed between the ring gear and the bell housing (have seen that before>. Before tearing down the motor just check out the obvious. You could check for a dropped valve from inside the rocker cover, look for a massive clearance between the cam and followers.

Bob

Just out of curiosity, if it does turn out the engine is shot would a zetec with bike carbs and a cat get thru emmisions at iva?

If you find a 94 or older zetec it wont need a cat

If you use a newer one i think it is possible with the correct mixture across the range, but cats dont like being abused so if it ran rich at some point in the revs you could ruin the cat quickly

If your cvh ran before you stripped it and it hasnt ran since it should run again!

There isnt that many things that would physically stop it turning over so im sure you can find the culprit easily enough

Well I had it to bits now and I couldn't see anything jamming it up. I have no idea if there was something by the flywheel but there was no way to see in there really. So I took the timing cover & belt off and there was nothing there. Then took the inlet & exhausts manifolds and finally the head. I then tried turning the head and it cranked on its own fine with no resistance. I then tried to crank the bottom and it still wouldn't budge indicating it was the bottom end that had seized up :(

I got the head off and onto the bench and couldn't see anything that looked different like gaps in the followers looked ok with no gaps and the valves on the bottom looked ok. I then turned my attention to the block and as expected there was about 3mm of oil sitting in each cylinder and at first it wouldn't crank by hand but after a second or two of pressure trying to turn the pulley with a socket it started to move! Slowly it got easier till eventually it would turn round without much resistance. I guess the inside of the cylinders are nicely oiled now although it doesn't look like any of the oil had seeped past the pistons into the sump?

Maybe had some light rust due to the water you got in there holding it in place

Wouldn't surprise me, just strange how everything was ok for and then it stuck all the sudden like that :confused:

You may get away with reusing the gasket and bolts for testing. But I would plan to replace them before using the engine.

TT

Well I've ordered a new set so I'll replace them when they show up. Hopefully when I get it all back together it'll start this time!

Bolt it back up with the old gasket anyway, don't do the bolts mega tight.

Then check it turns over by hand so we know that's fixed..

There is one possibility that I forgot although it's slim but should be checked anyway. It's possible the water pump is very very seezed.

TT

Ok well I'll try turning it over by hand again tonite with the old gasket, shame it's not really re-usable as its only been on for a couple of weeks :( Is the water pump the pulley directly above the crank pulley and below the tensioner? If so I tried turning this by hand this morning and no issues there.

Daft question but were the new plugs the same length as the old plugs? If it was cranking fine until you changed them then that's the first thing to check.
It's unlikely putting a drop of oil down the bores knackered it unless you put way too much down there and have created a hydrostatic lock.

I think the plugs where the same size, they screwed in ok. I'll have to check tonight though. They where bosch ones I got from halfords for around £20, apparently uprated ones. I know I needed a 5/8 socket tool to get them out. When I had the head off there was about 3-5mm of oil pooled in each cylinder?

sounds like it was too much oil to me and locking the engine.
Hopefully wont have done any damage, now its all turning freely bolt it back up and I'm sure it will be good!

Next time its recommended to put oil down the bores perhaps a quantity would help :) I've only ever put a half a dozen drops down.

Still odd it was hard to crank with the head off though

Finally got it back together last night and cranking by hand ok again. Strangely though it won't hand crank off the crank pulley bolt once the pulley is on?

Anyhow I got all the auxillaries back on and tried to start it again. It nearly went as I got sort of hollow popping sounds and puffs of smoke coming out the exhaust! After about 30 seconds of about 5 seconds trying to crank, 5 seconds off the battery died on me again from full :(

So I left the battery charging overnight and tried it again this morning and I got farily regular smoke coming out the exhaust but it still won't start & stay runnnig :(

Any ideas?

Buy a can of "start ya b$%^$%d" turn off the fuel pump and spray SYB into each carb choke.

Then give it a go.

the battery going flat must be a dud battery by now.

TT

the battery is brand new though! I only bought it last weekend :( I'm going to halfords tonight though on the way home to get a belt for the alternator as I'm hoping that will help slow down how quickly it goes flat, can I get this SYB there? Also not sure what the bike carb chokes look like ( I have got the choke held fully open).

Also how much of syb do you spray down each port?

Choke is just another name for the carb barrels.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/s...egoryId_255221

Is more or less the same stuff

TT

Ok so just spray it down the air inlet trumpets and how much would you recommend? A quick squirt, a second, 2 seconds worth of squirt etc?

a 3 second squirt in each port, and if it fires you will need to keep giving each port a snifter to keep it running..

If that work, you may then find it will start on fuel alone, if not then another go with the gas and the fuel pump running may see it going properly.

TT

Good stuff, looking forward to it now :) many thanks again for all your help!

When you say it won't crank with the pulley bolt done up, is that with the alternator pulley on?

When you have had the engine in bits have you ever taken all the bottom pulleys off including the cambelt pulley? There should be a thrust washer behind the cambelt pulley. If this is missing the pulleys might be doing up against the front of the oil pump and jamming it up.

Might be worth a look.

Hard to describe as I'm not sure of the proper names for stuff but here goes:

theres a spoked wheel 1st which the timing belt fits onto so we'll call that wheel A. another wheel then fits onfront of that which has the teeth for the crank sensor and the belt to run the alternator fits onto it, i'll call that wheel B.

so when only wheel A is on with the timing belt, it turns no probs. As soon as wheel B is fitted and bolted on, it won't turn by hand using the bolt anymore.

There should be a washer between wheel A and the front of the oil pump. If this isn't there when you fit wheel B and do up the bolt, they could all be doing up tight against the front of the engine stopping it from turning. If you can not do the crank bolt up to the correct torgue value without it locking the engine something is wrong, and needs to be resolved before attempting to start the engine. How did you manage to try and start the engine last night if you can not do the bolt up tight?

I'll have to check tonight if there's a washer there or not. When I put it back together last night after a few goes of taking the pulley (wheel b) off and loosing the engine again and then putting it back on and it getting stuck that maybe it was designed that way as I had to jam it to be able to loosen the bolt otherwise the engine would just spin counter clockwise. I was just putting a screwdriver through the camshaft pulley to stop is spinning so I could loosen the bolt. So after a few goes of this I decided it must be some sort of design thing and tried putting all the auxillaries back on to give it a go. I figured if it was truely jammed because of something like the washer you've mentioned the starter wouldn't be able to spin the engine same as when the whole thing was hydrolocked because of there being too much oil in the cylinders.

I double checked and it definitely won't turn either direction by hand with the pulley fitted. Strangely though even with the pulley off and the bolt done up tight on the cam belt sprocket, it will turn fairly easily??

I took the cam belt off and had a look. the thrust washer looks to on there and pushed up against the back of the cam belt sprocket? I'm sure I did take this off ages ago when I was working on the engine so is there a wrong way to put this back on? I think it has a notch on it for the woodruf key so it can only go on one way?

It may be that the washer has been crushed too much if was tightened beyond the required torque, if you can get someone to measure one and do a comparison might be a good idea.

You could also measure from the surface of the washer to where the nut fits and compare that dimension to the width of the pulley.

Nigel

You say you can fully tighten the bolt with just the cambelt pulley on.

The next thing I would try is leave the cambelt cover off. I know it won't start because the crankshaft position sensor is mounted on it. Then fit the alternator pulley and fully torgue the bolt.

Does the engine still turn over? If yes then the pulley must be catching on the metal cambelt cover and getting stuck. If it still won't turn over there has got to be something wrong with how the pulleys are seating on the crankshaft.

Post up some pictures of the front of the engine and the pulleys if you can for us to take a look at.

I tried turning without the cover on 1st as that's how I noticed it wouldn't hand crank with the alternator pulley on. I was going to try and get the cambelt pulley off next to have a look at the washer. If it looks ok I was then thinking of taking the plugs out to remove the compression and bolting on the alternator pulley to see if it would hand turn with no compression and no cambelt to see maybe if the alternator pulley is catching the cambelt somehow? I'll take some pic's tonight and hopefully it'll be somthing obvious. Starting to loose heart now and thinking of ditching the engine and just getting a brand new zetec :(

Brainbug lose heart!!!!!!!!!!!! I dont think so:)

Its going to be something very simple.Its all just nuts, bolts and bits of metal but it has to go together in the right order.

Bob

Even with the plugs in it should turn over by hand using a ratchet.
I wouldn't recommend turning over the crankshaft without having the cambelt on and correctly timed as you could touch the pistons on the valves. You wouldn't damage anything just doing it by hand, but it could touch.

If you have done the test I suggested without the cambelt cover then I would say it has got to be something to do with the thrust washer. You will be able to tell which way round it would have been originally by the dirt on it leaving a shadow of the pulley.