How freely should an engine turn by hand?

[cps13]

Hi,

I have a 1.8 zetec which I am going to put in (hopefully) to the kit car I am building.

It has been stood up in dry storage for about 18 months now. I went to turn the engine by hand today, I had a 2ft breaker bar with a socket on the crank wheel and it would turn easy-ish. Basically it would turn about 180 degrees freely and then become stiff for 180 degrees. During the hard turn you could also hear what sounded like air being displaced from somewhere, was this just the pistons moving up? Also if I stopped turing after about 90 degrees (whilst in the 180 degrees hard turn) it would pull the bar back down again.

Is this normal/reasonable?

P.S - possible female moment, it has occured to me whilst writing this that I have removed the inlet manifold and taped over the holes to prevent dirt getting in. Would this make it harder to turn as it cannot draw air in easily?! Doh!!!!

[stevieturbo]

It should turn around 90 deg and get stiff at intervals during a compression stroke. I doubt tape would make a huge difference either way.

but if it's turning 180deg freely then stiff another 180, that doesnt sound right.

And 18 months if stored indoors shouldnt pose any problems

Pull the plugs and it should turn over pretty freely with a bar on the crank

[powerstroke]

cps13 said:

Hi,

I have a 1.8 zetec which I am going to put in (hopefully) to the kit car I am building.

It has been stood up in dry storage for about 18 months now. I went to turn the engine by hand today, I had a 2ft breaker bar with a socket on the crank wheel and it would turn easy-ish. Basically it would turn about 180 degrees freely and then become stiff for 180 degrees. During the hard turn you could also hear what sounded like air being displaced from somewhere, was this just the pistons moving up? Also if I stopped turing after about 90 degrees (whilst in the 180 degrees hard turn) it would pull the bar back down again.

Is this normal/reasonable?

P.S - possible female moment, it has occured to me whilst writing this that I have removed the inlet manifold and taped over the holes to prevent dirt getting in. Would this make it harder to turn as it cannot draw air in easily?! Doh!!!!

Best bet is to take the plugs out and put about a table spoon of oil down each cylinder turn it over a few times put the plugs back then just try it when you get it fitted did you hear it run when you bought it?? if so it should be fine ..good luck with the project....

Edited by powerstroke on Monday 28th November 20:25

[Kitchski]

FWIW you can turn an S54 BMW M3 engine over by hand with relative ease, using only the flywheel. Must be the variable timing being operated by oil pressure, so when the engine's off there is no pressure and the cam timing allows more overlap, so less compression for each stroke. Or something.

[DVandrews]

My rule of thumb is that if the engine (with the plugs out) doesnt turn over at 20lb/ft or under then you may have a problem. when the crank is at 90BTDC the relative movement of the pistons WRT to crank degrees is at it's highest so you would expect the turning resistance to vary a little higher between 120 and 60 degrees BTDC, particularly on a new engine.

Davr

[davepoth]

With the plugs out it should be easy enough to turn it on a small bar. In fact on the cars I've done it on it's been possible to turn the engine using the (belt driven) fan. As has been said if there's any resistance the pistons may be stuck in the bore, so put a bit of oil down there.