Sorry I didn't finish explaining, but if my theory happened to be correct then you would be able to turn the engine by hand much easier with the starter removed.



Tom from the chiggerfarm located in the beautiful Heart of Central Texas

When you cannot dazzle others with your brilliance, baffle them with bullcorn!

That is what I was thinking. So I pulled the starter and looked it inside and out then took it in to be tested and rebuilt.

I will keep you posted

Quote "when turning the engine with a ratchet you can hear a low growl like dry bearing sound"______________________________________________________________________________________________________


I think it might be possible that there is a problem with the starter and maybe the drive gear is stuck and causing the starter to turn with the engine? That would explain the strange sound you are describing. It is not much trouble to remove the starter and eliminate it as the problem.



Tom from the chiggerfarm located in the beautiful Heart of Central Texas

When you cannot dazzle others with your brilliance, baffle them with bullcorn!

Have you had it running since you rebuilt it?

  

Anythings possible, but it might be better to check the bottom end BEFORE you wipe out the crank and bearings.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

This started happening after I rebuild it, It ran before that. Is it possible that the starter doesn't have enough torque to turn it over?

Another thought, based on a friend's rebuilt flat head that had setting for a number of years. Wouldn't turn over. Removed the rod bearings and main bearing caps and still nothing. It turned out the rope seal had bonded to crank surface. Cleaned up the crank surface and replaced the rope seal and everything was good.

Jeff Petersen

Have you tested your battery?Is this a recent occurrence that just started happening or?

  

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.

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