If you unbolt the convertor from the flex plate you should be able to turn the motor without touching anything else to do with the transmission.Is the starter drive retracted to the disengaged position and not stuck in the engaged postion on the ring gear of the convertor?

  

I recently had my engine open and checked bearings. While I had the pan off, somebody apparently reinstalled a rod cap the wrong direction. The engine became impossible to turn for these old arms with that one error. Since I was the only one working on the car, it was probably trolls messing with me. If you can still turn the engine, unbolt the convertor, which is fairly easy through the starter hole and lower cover, or just loosen all the caps and retorque the one at a time. Hope this helps.

Don

Back in the day a ring and valve job was common and cheap. The rings may not have been sized to the bore so check the cylinder walls for vertical scuff marks. The fact that it was "rebuilt" and never started is not a good kind of thing. At this point you should assume the worst. Pete

If the engine was assembled by someone else, all the more reason to check it. I once checked a 312 for a customer that he had bought from a respected circle track engine builder in the southeast. The builder was obviously a Cxxx guy, because the rods were installed in the Cxxx order, which made the rod bearings ride the radius on the crank. The timing chain was installed per Cxxx practice, and the cold adjustment of the valves caused the exhausts to have 1/4" clearance. The cylinder head bolts were installed in the wrong holes, so the gaskets were doomed to fail.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

Not to sound like a Cxxx guy, what in the heck is a Cxxx?

~DJ~ AKA "Bleach"
1956 Ford Fairlane Town Sedan 30K original miles

scrub, gm, chevxxxx, etc. We don't like to use the Cxxxx word here! We hear enough about them in ALL the car mag and TV shows. Chuck

Y's guys rule!
Looking for McCullouch VS57 brackets and parts. Also looking for 28 Chrysler series 72 parts. And early Hemi parts.

MoonShadow, 292 w/McCulloch, 28 Chrysler Roadster, 354 Hemi)
Manchester, New Hampshire

Have you run an electric drill in reverse to power the oil pump and lube the internals?

312T85Bird

What?

yes i have oil at the rockers

OK, now I get it. It's the same as any four letter word that usually gets censored like this **** on some sites.

~DJ~ AKA "Bleach"
1956 Ford Fairlane Town Sedan 30K original miles

I'm having an issue like this too, Have you removed all of the sparkplugs and tried to turn over?

Here is what I’m seeing.

1. The engine turn overfreely without the sparkplugs.

2. When I put onesparkplug in, the engine will bog down and pause. For example, With all of thesparkplugs removed. Then put a sparkplug in #1 cylinder while on TDC then crankthe engine, it will bog at #1 cylinder. It will do this on all cylinders.

3. with all of the sparkplugs init will barely turn over.