This is a looong post I know, but I just wanted to write down all information. If you don't care to read the whole post the problem that we need help with is in the header. But if you read the whole post I will give you some nice pictures of the engine swap at the bottom as a thank you! =)
So me and my brother got a, supposedly newly renovated, 318 to swap into our Barracuda -66 because the stock 273 have been having compression issues lately. The 318 from 1985-ish was already configured to go into an a-body so the only thing that we needed to swap from the 273 was the oil pan and the oil pickup since the 318 one was to big. We also swapped the carburetor just for kicks...
At the end of the swap, when we were trying to start the engine it went fine a while, but then it got harder and harder to pull around both by hand and with the starter, and eventually it got stuck. Without ever being started at all...
First weekend we cranked it a bit by hand (mostly in the CW direction), after the oil was emptied out, to dial in the bell housing. It still had some lubrication left tough, and we turned it perhaps 15 turns slowly by hand. Everything seemed fine. After we installed it, and put oil in it (to the full mark on the stick), we then worked up the oil pressure with the starter and it still seemed just fine. Then we put on the spark cables and tried to start it but it didn't fire so we decided to have another go the next weekend after reading up on ignition timing and what not.
Last weekend we tried to configure the distributor, firing order and ignition timing. We turned it both by hand (again mostly CW) and with the starter about five minutes in total but we only got one lousy cylinder to ignite one time. The engine seemed to have oil pressure tough (gauge didn't work but we had one of the valve covers off so we could see it lubricate) so we thought we simply flooded it. So we blew compressed air down the spark plug holes and on the spark plugs to air out all gasoline and decided to swap in the working distributor from the old 273 the next morning. Then we gave it another go.
This is were we first had some trouble with the engine giving some resistance. At first we tough it was just the battery running out, but the resistance remained even with start booster and new battery. The starter just went slower and slower. This is were we noticed that the engine was very hard to turn, and that the cables from the batteries were warm from trying to drive the starter against the resistance. If we used all our force we could just barely crank the engine by hand like one inch. Even with the spark plugs out to remove compression it was the same problem. We didn't try to turn it after that, neither CW or CCW.
And this is were we are at. You guys have any toughs? We are thankful for any help or suggestions we can get. Did we do anything wrong that is likely to have caused the problem or is it more likely that the engine wasn't renovated correctly? Unfortunately I don't have any information about the renovation of the 318, just that it was done perhaps six-twelve months ago before we bought it, and that it haven't been started since. The only irregularities we noticed was some flakes of paint inside the engine when removing the oil pan (see picture) that we didn't clean out very well...
So me and my brother got a, supposedly newly renovated, 318 to swap into our Barracuda -66 because the stock 273 have been having compression issues lately. The 318 from 1985-ish was already configured to go into an a-body so the only thing that we needed to swap from the 273 was the oil pan and the oil pickup since the 318 one was to big. We also swapped the carburetor just for kicks...
At the end of the swap, when we were trying to start the engine it went fine a while, but then it got harder and harder to pull around both by hand and with the starter, and eventually it got stuck. Without ever being started at all...
First weekend we cranked it a bit by hand (mostly in the CW direction), after the oil was emptied out, to dial in the bell housing. It still had some lubrication left tough, and we turned it perhaps 15 turns slowly by hand. Everything seemed fine. After we installed it, and put oil in it (to the full mark on the stick), we then worked up the oil pressure with the starter and it still seemed just fine. Then we put on the spark cables and tried to start it but it didn't fire so we decided to have another go the next weekend after reading up on ignition timing and what not.
Last weekend we tried to configure the distributor, firing order and ignition timing. We turned it both by hand (again mostly CW) and with the starter about five minutes in total but we only got one lousy cylinder to ignite one time. The engine seemed to have oil pressure tough (gauge didn't work but we had one of the valve covers off so we could see it lubricate) so we thought we simply flooded it. So we blew compressed air down the spark plug holes and on the spark plugs to air out all gasoline and decided to swap in the working distributor from the old 273 the next morning. Then we gave it another go.
This is were we first had some trouble with the engine giving some resistance. At first we tough it was just the battery running out, but the resistance remained even with start booster and new battery. The starter just went slower and slower. This is were we noticed that the engine was very hard to turn, and that the cables from the batteries were warm from trying to drive the starter against the resistance. If we used all our force we could just barely crank the engine by hand like one inch. Even with the spark plugs out to remove compression it was the same problem. We didn't try to turn it after that, neither CW or CCW.
And this is were we are at. You guys have any toughs? We are thankful for any help or suggestions we can get. Did we do anything wrong that is likely to have caused the problem or is it more likely that the engine wasn't renovated correctly? Unfortunately I don't have any information about the renovation of the 318, just that it was done perhaps six-twelve months ago before we bought it, and that it haven't been started since. The only irregularities we noticed was some flakes of paint inside the engine when removing the oil pan (see picture) that we didn't clean out very well...
