# 1999 maxima engine will not rotate either way



## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

I tore the engine down to replace the valve stem seals (a ridiculous amount of work to replace valve stem seals, but anyway). I got it all back together and when I went to start the engine it tried for a second and then burnt the wire that runs from the starter to the solenoid. Now when i try to turn the crankshaft, it won't budge either way. I would think that if it were out of time and I had piston to valve contact, then it would be able to back off away from the valve. I can put a crescent wrench on the cam shafts and barely rotate them back and forth but that's as far as I can get with it. I am at a loss on this one and am humbly requesting help. Any help is greatly appreciated as I really need to wrap this project up.


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

If you did smack a piston, you _might_ have a piston cocked in the cylinder, binding it up.
More likely though, the starter gear is bound up on the flywheel.
But overall, sounds to me like you might be pulling the engine and replacing a BUNCH of stuff...pistons, rods, bearings, gaskets, valves, etc.


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

Thank you for the reply. The starter pulled out easily and the crank is still seized. I'm curious if I might have broken a tooth or something on the oil pump. I had to use the starter bump trick to loosen the crank shaft bolt. Thanks for the help.


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## rogoman (Dec 16, 2004)

I would venture to say that your problem is incorrect cam timing. It's most likely way off causing pistons to hit open valves when you try to turn the crank assembly. When you replaced the valve stem seals, the timing chain had to be removed; so there's a good chance that during reassembly the chain timing was done incorrectly.

You may have some bent valves; the best way to test for that is by performing a leakdown test on each cylinder; make sure to first remove all the cams prior to the test.


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

KevinCro said:


> Thank you for the reply. The starter pulled out easily and the crank is still seized. I'm curious if I might have broken a tooth or something on the oil pump. I had to use the starter bump trick to loosen the crank shaft bolt. Thanks for the help.


If you couldn't turn the crankshaft either way (post #1), how could the starter bump trick possibly work?


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

jdg said:


> If you couldn't turn the crankshaft either way (post #1), how could the starter bump trick possibly work?


I should clarify. I went into the engine to replace the leaky valve stem seals. It was not until after I got the engine back together that the crank would not move. 

I can understand the timing concern. This was the first thing I though about. However, the cam timing was set according to the factory service manual. All three colored chain links match exactly with the right teeth on all three gears. I don't mean to argue with you guys I just want to make sure you have all the info I can give. 

I am tearing the engine back down tonight and tomorrow and I will see if I spot any obvious problems. I will update this accordingly. Thanks for the help.


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

I have the engine back apart and with the cams off the crank still will not move. It is seized. All of my valves came back up as soon as the cams were pulled. I really do not know what could have caused this. I guess my next step is to pull the heads and see if I can find anything there. I really don't want to have to pull this engine if I can help it.


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

Is it possible that the torque converter is binded now or something like that?


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

I was about to suggest the same thing, but I'd really REALLY doubt it. If the T/C had a catastrophic failure bad enough to cause it to bind up the input shaft, you would've heard or felt something beforehand.
Nope, I think you dropped a valve and bent the heck out of one, maybe even sucked in a chunk of a valve, got it caught between the piston and the cylinder wall itself.
I'd start planning on pulling the engine...


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## smj999smj (Jan 1, 2006)

Before I would pull the engine, I would remove the spark plugs and try to turn the engine by hand.


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

I pulled the plugs first to rule out hydrolock. i can't turn the crank with a breaker bar or my impact wrench. Is it possible that some metal got introduced into the crankcase at some point during the tear down? I'm trying to locate a borescope and I will update this thread when I can.


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

I bought a borescope to check the block but the camera was too big to fit inside the cylinder. I have a suspicion that it might have rust on the cylinder walls. I have poured some transmission fluid into the cylinders and will let it set overnight.


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

How long did the engine sit with the heads off, or at least how long has it been since the engine last ran under it's own power?


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

It has set since the first of january. The plugs have been out since then and the oil pan has been off. I realize that this is not likely to be the problem but I'm out of ideas.


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

You're only delaying the inevitable by at least not taking the head off and having a look see.


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

Well the symptoms that I'm using to diagnose this proplem are as follows:

The cams are removed and all valves are seated properly. 

The crankshaft will not move either way. (rules out piston valve/foreign object contact)

The engine never ran so it cannot be seized for lack of oil.

The engine was never rotated until I hit the starter. At this point it only grunted and rotated the engine about 45 degrees. This says that the problem was in place prior to hitting the starter. My father was able to turn the flywheel with a pry bar but it was very difficult.


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

Delaying the inevitable...
Broke off a piece of a valve. Valve still seats but doesn't seal. Broken piece of valve and/or piston skirt or upper ring land is wedged between piston and cylinder wall.
You can guess all you want, but you can't get any farther on this problem without pulling the head...unless there's some missing piece of the puzzle that we haven't been informed of yet.
You can look down all the cylinders with a borescope, and if you find a problem, you have to pull the head.
You can pull the oil pan and find a piston with a broken skirt and that chunk is wedged up against the cylinder wall. Gotta pull the head after you get the engine out to get that cylinder honed.
You'll pull the cams back off, do a leak down check of all the cylinders and find one that won't hold pressure. Head's gotta come off to replace the broken valve or valve seat or similar.
You've got rusted cylinders (doubt it). Head's gotta come off to hone out the rust out of the cylinders (unless you actually want to fire up the engine with rust on the cylinder walls and burn off the rest of what's left of your rings).
So, get those sockets out, get a breaker bar, and start pulling that head off!


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

To rebutt some of these comments a bit:



KevinCro said:


> The cams are removed and all valves are seated properly.


How can you tell without seeing the head of the valve itself? All you are seeing is the valve stem.



> The crankshaft will not move either way. (rules out piston valve/foreign object contact)


Actually, that alone rules foreign object damage *IN*. Whatever it was floating around in there could've been wedged up in there, and now it's dug itself into the aluminum of the piston and the cylinder wall itself.



> The engine never ran so it cannot be seized for lack of oil.


True, but only because it's seized by something else.



> At this point it only grunted and rotated the engine about 45 degrees.


 as it ground up that chunk of whatever.



> This says that the problem was in place prior to hitting the starter.


 Right, dropped in there while you were changing out the stem seals.



> My father was able to turn the flywheel with a pry bar but it was very difficult.


which is what happens when you've got an extra piece of metal stuck in the cylinder wall.


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## rogoman (Dec 16, 2004)

Was the engine run recently prior to doing the valve stem seals? If not, it may have been already seized for quite some time; your next step then is to pull the heads.


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## KevinCro (Jan 31, 2012)

I finally got around to pulling the heads and I found a massive amount of carbon buildup in cylinder number 6. The piston could not move passed it. Once I cleaned the cylinder wall the engine turns smoothly. I suppose I could have washed a bunch of carbon down into the cylinder when I sprayed throttle body cleaner into the head port. At any rate I have now fixed this problem but I now have another problem. I loosened up a couple of connecting rods and my main bearings in order to see if the crank was seized. When I went to tighten the rod caps, I broke a rod cap stud. I was using a click type torque wrench set to the factory spec of 15 ft. lbs. The wrench never even clicked and the manual calls for a 90 degree rotate on passed the 15 ft. lbs. So now I am trying to locate a replacement stud. Does anyone know where I coiuld find one? I have done some searching online but have come up empty handed. Thanks for all the help.


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## jdg (Aug 27, 2009)

At least you found the problem...then created one.
That's the problem with 'torque to yield' hardware. You can only 'torque to yield' them one time.
Do it a second time, and you get exactly what you got, except for the wrench not clicking. 15ft/lbs ain't much at all...a couple fingers worth of pulling force at most.
I don't know the thread size/length either, but at decent machine shop should be able to come up with one for you.


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