im building my first motor block up its a chevy 350 yesterday i put in the crank pistons rods cam all the bearings timing chain and oil pump and now the thing willturn over but its incredibly hard to do so.... is this normal?? before i tore it down to nothing it was about this hard to turn but that was with the heads on it with compression.......... in hoping this is normal just cause of the new bearings etc but i did soak them in oil and everything so im stumped it may just be somthing stupid due to lack of knowlage being my first real build, anny help would be greatly appreciated thanks

 

my guess is you got some caps on backwards. did you mark anything before you took it apart?

 

Obviously you don't have anyone to smack your hand when you do it wrong, so how many books have you read?

I don't have someone to smack my hands either. I've read 5 books on how to assemble (even more about building for performance) a SBC and I'm still nervous about touching the bottom end.

I'll pull heads, springs, seals, cams, etc. etc. all day long, but when it comes to the lower rotating assembly, I don't have the confidence. And that's the worse part. I get so nervous I start breaking stuff. I finally built up the ***** to check for ring gap on my block and in the process broke one of the rings. Probably because I was nervous.

My point is, there are a lot of small things that someone would never know unless they happened to pay attention to the disassembly, or they found it in one book and not another.

Did you check the ring gap? Did you check crank thrust? Did you check bearing clearance? Did you seat the thrust bearing?Did you check rod-side clearance? Did you install the rods so the tapered side was toward the radii of the rod journal? Are all the bearings installed with the groove (if yours have grooves) in the top/block side of the mains? Did you put assembly on ALL the bearings, or is it possible you may have missed one? Did you clean, then oil all the cylinder walls?

 

What ede said is the first place I'd look.

The next thing is a little more obscure.... make sure the rods are in the motor right. Specifically, the pistons have a definite front, and the rods have a definite "inside" and "outside", so if you look at all the pistons from the front, you should see 4 "left-handed" and 4 "right-handed" rod assemblies. If you have a right-bank piston'rod ***'y on the left bank or vice-versa, or merely a rod that's hung backwards, the edge of the rod bearing that's supposed to be next to another rod bearing, is instead on the crank journal's radius fillet. With most bearings that doesn't matter, but with some, the bearing shells are sufficiently asymmetrical that the bearing will try to force itself off the fillet, and will mash itself hard against its neighbor rod.

You can look at the rods and see; all of the bearing tangs should be to the "outside", away from the cam, along with the number stamping (if there is any).

 

Putting an engine together correctly is very time consuming and nerve racking. I am almost done building my 406. I have checked ring gap, all the bearing clearences, side clearences, pushrod length and some other stuff. When putting the engine together after you put in a rod/piston and bolt it down, spin the engine 360 degree's so you can tell if there is anything wrong. IF you just bolt everything together then try to turn it over and it wont, there's no way of telling which cylinder is giving you a problem. Yes the engine will be kinda tough to turn over because of the rings dragging against the cylinder walls, and since the engine is new and nothing is wore together it will be harder to turn over than the engine you took out.

Read as much as you can and have someone help you that knows what they are doing if all possible.

Good luck.
Jason

 

thanks alot im going to reassemble it and check everything you all pointed out because some i never even thought of but how is it that i tell which way which rods and caps face because i think thats probily what it is, thanks alot all of your suggestions have helped alot

 

more than likely its one of the things already said, but, if all those check out, make sure that you dont have one of the short head bolts used in the oil pump. They are almost the exact size and can be swapped and the motor will either not turn or be very hard. The one for the oil pump is about .100 shorter than a head bolt.

 

look in your manual and you'll find pics of the rods, front and rear. you have a manual right? the pistons are marked in some way to indicate front. sounds like you never marked anything when you took it apart. it'd be real smart move if you found someone that could help you out that had a bit more knowledge about rebuilds and engines.