59ab hard to turn over

oldgrayman

oldgrayman

Junior Member
Sorry in advance if this is a stupid question. I just replaced the gaskets on my oil pan to stop an oil leak. After putting in the new seals and gaskets, it won’t turn over. If I remove 5 of the spark plugs, it turns over and runs for about a minute before shutting down. Recharging the battery will get it to start again and run for a short time. Before this work it ran very well. My uninformed thought is that the front seal is too large and is putting too much drag on the crank and keeping it from turning over fast enough to start with more plugs in place. If I continue to spin the motor with a limited number of plugs, will I harm the motor? If it is the seal, will it wear in? Does anyone have any suggestions of what the next step should be? Thanks for your thoughts.
 
No, you won't hurt anything by running it with a few plugs out. Tell us about the front seal - original style rope seal or aftermarket one piece/modern style?
 
The motor turns easily with all the plugs out. The starter also spins the motor easily with all the plugs removed.
 
here is some wild guesses: The bendix drive is sticking in the flywheel, or the battery is weak . Give it a load test Most parts stores can do it.
 
A new battery can still be bad. I couldn't figure out why my 46 with a freshly rebuilt flathead and a new Napa battery was a hard starter. After much messing about another new battery solved the issue.. YMMV.
 
The ground for the starter is through the pan. Maybe by disturbing the pan it no longer is grounding like it should be. Did you paint the pan when you had it off?
 
No, didn’t do any painting when the pan was off, though I probably should have done a little touch up while I was under there.
But, now I’m wondering if a bad starter could be the cause of these issues? Would a defective starter possibly be unable to turn over the engine under load? Any ideas of how to test a starter under load conditions?

Thanks to all for the thoughtful help.
 
Put all 5 pugs back in and see if it will run. if I'm reading this post right, 5 cylinders would be sucking air. I'm surprised it will run at all.
 
oldgrayman said:
If I remove 5 of the spark plugs, it turns over and runs for about a minute before shutting down. If I continue to spin the motor with a limited number of plugs, will I harm the motor?
Click to expand...

You are not going to harm the engine running it with some of the plugs out. If you remove the correct plugs (4) you can run it as a 4 cylinder.
 
If it turns over easily with the plugs out it is not the seal.
Put a starter draw amp gage on the battery cable and see if the starter draws 175 amps or 400.
 
Just pulled the starter and took it to a machine shop. The load test suggested the starter was bad as it failed each of the 3 times they tested. I’m having it rebuilt and will post a note when I get it back in the truck. Thanks for all the helpful suggestions and thoughts!
 
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