Engine stuck when tightening tranny bolts!?

Hi, I have a problem with the '75 Buick 231 I'm currently mounting in my ECJ-5. When I tighten the bolts that holds the tranny to the engine I can no longer turn over the engine, but if i loosen the bolts again the engine turns over easy. The tranny is a TH350. I wonder if there maby scould be a sort of a shim-plate between the engine and tranny that I am missing. Anybody who knows what I'm doing wrong?? The engine and tranny came from the same car, but was taken apart when I bought them.

 

auto tranny,..... torque converter not all the way in the pump, I know you said they came from the same vehicle, but are you 100% sure? if it has a pilot bushing in the end of the crank it will need to come out as it will foul it as well

 

Yes I am 100% shure they came from the same car. The converter was never taken of the engine. The spline-sections on the pump shaft are at least one inch long each, and I only have to loosen 1 mm or so to make it turn easy. Dont know about the pilotbushing in the crank, but as I said the converter never came of.

 

right there is your problem, take the convertor off the flrxplate and install it on the tranny, spin it as you are appling pressure it shoud go through 3 phases when its finally seated, just use hand preasure while spining it, the last catch is usally a pain but you will feel it go on in

 

by the way if its in corect when the bellhousing is mated to the transmission you will have a small gap between the flexplate and the torque convertor, this will go away once you tighten the torque converter bolts, you should be able to spin the converter with all the bell housing bolts tight before you put the converter bolts in

 

may want to check the pump for damage, this is a common mistake alot of people make, just because they didnt know any better

 

Thanks alot, I'll take it apart again and try to mount the converter into the tranny first and check for the 3 phases. Dont know howto check the pump for damage though, as I'm not capable of opening an auto-tranny. I will just try to get it mounted right and hope no damage has occured.

 

if you stoped tightening the bolts as soon as it fouled you are more than likley alright. the pump is not that hard to replace it just comes out, any deeper than that you are getting into pandoras box

 

Now I've done it the way you said Kaiser, and now it turns like a dream. Dont know about the pump since I have'nt started the engine yet, but i wil just have to hope it will work. Thanks alot for your help again!!

 

your welcome!

 

Been there and done the same thing you have with not installing the torque converter all the way. Except it was on a Camry and had to spend hours dropping the tranny again to align the torque converter. It was a hard leason learned, but checkinging for that gap prior to installing all the bolts if a vital leason I learned. I was lucky and didn't damage anything so I am betting you didn't cause any damage either.