Flywheel wont rotate
 

I have 13b short block sitting in my garage that i was planning on putting in my '88 vert while pulled the current 13b for a rebuild (bad water seal). When I went out to the garage today I discovered that the flywheel would not freely spin. It would spin maybe 1/6th of a full rotation if i try hard enough.:scratch: Now I got this engine from a friend and it was running when he pulled it but its been sitting in my garage for quite sometime.

What could be the cause of this and how would I go about fixing it short of rebuilding.

Thanks in advance for all the help!!

i wouldnt recommend trying to forcefully turn it.
my bet is that something dropped into the intake during disassembly and is now in the combustion chamber.

Take a look in the ports and through the plug holes for any foreign objects. If you don't see any, try working some MMO (or motor oil) into the chambers to see if the engine begins to loosen up.

Thanks for the tips Ill try it today and let you guys know.

i had the same problem. it was a bolt or nut that the counter weigth on the flywheel hitting on. check all odds

How long was the engine sitting up? If this engine didn't have coolant in the system, you will have rusted the rotor and seals to the plates/housings if water got into the chamber and sat up over time. Your gonna have to open the engine! I know for a fact that it doesn't take long for rust to lock up one of these engines. If you had good coolant in the engine, you could easily have carbon lock as NA rotarys carbon up something fierce. Good luck!

My impression is that his "current" motor has a bad coolant seal. This is a second motor he got from a friend which has been sitting out for a while (but was running before pulled). However, if it wasn't blocked off, moisture could have gotten in and done the same thing.

Id put some oil into the chambers just to lube the apex seals and turn it with a rachet very slowly.

Before ya do this do what the other bloke said have a look in the exhaust ports see iff ya can see anything.

Be very carefull ya dont damage the seals so dont stick nothing in there.

Nothing seems to be working I guess I'll have to take it apart.

Now I know this isnt the proper way and is going to be more expensive in the long run but since its my dd i need it running ASAP. Could I take this block apart basically just to figure out why its not rotating address that problem and reassemble using a new gasket set but not replacing any of the seals (oil, side, apex) assuming they aren't broken. remember i only need it running for a month or two.

the hard seals should be fine to reuse as long as they aren't out of spec or broken, you will need to replace the soft seals though