Hey everyone,
i just finished honing the cylinders on my 304, put the rings on and reinstalled the pistons to the engine. my question is how much resistance should i have when trying to turn the crank by hand with the pistons in with no heads on. before i took it apart it was easy to turn by hand. now it is nearly impossible by hand. is this bad? i figured it is just the new rings against the deglazed cylinder walls.

thanks
dave

yes that is a bad thing, check the bearing
clearences, make sure all the bearings are the same, it should turn as easy or really close to it

Soooo ...
Ya hone the cylinders, put in new rings and expect to turn it over by hand "just like before" ???
Hah! <IMG SRC="smilies/rolleyes.gif" border="0">

Its not going to be as easy but it shouldnt be impossible either. if you cant turn the crank with a regular size 1/2" ratchet something is wrong.

Yeah, you need to define what "turning by hand" is......
:rolleyes:

Check the bearings with plastigage (probably did), and make sure the rings are installed in the right order (might not cause this problem, but will make things interesting later) :D

Should be a LITTLE stiff, since this is a "precision part" here, but you should be able to spin it easily with a ratchet.