No start after a new battery and starter

[ryoung415]

Ok, when I bought my truck ('87 lwb) the speedo wasn't working. I determined it was the speedo gear had walked down the shaft in the transmission. I got that fixed and replaced the carrier bearing as it was shot and got it all back together. I tried to fire it up afterward and the motor would turn over, but not fire. I noticed the throttle body was dry and the injectors weren't firing. So looking at this forum, I thought it might be the ecm isn't getting a pulse from the distributor and a few folks suggested just holding down the key and let it go and it might start. So I tried that and it didn't work. Frustrated, I decided to replace my tank selector switch in the cab because it was something I could fix. I tried to crank it again after I replaced the switch and it fired right up. It was idling like it was running wide open, so I killed it and tried to refire it, but the only thing I got sounded like the starter was engaging, but didn't have the power to turn the motor over. So I have replaced the battery with a brand new one, replaced the starter with a reman from autozone, and made sure the battery has at least 12v. But even with all of that, it still just makes a ticking sound when I try to crank it like before I replaced the battery and starter. A friend suggested it could be bad teeth on the flywheel and to try to rotate the motor by hand a little to see if it helped. I just tried that, but I could't get the motor to budge at all, not that I had the best leverage considering where the bolt on the crank pulley is. So my questions are, how hard should it be to manually rotate the engine (I'm really new at working on vehicles), and what could my no start issue be? Thanks for any suggestions.

[Pop's C-10]

you should be able to do it with only a socket on tha crank & a 3/8 ratchet..

[hatzie]

Engine should rotate pretty easy up to the compression part of the stroke then get stiffer but you still should be able to rotate it with a 18" ratchet...


Is the starter making a clank and no more noise or just ticking? Ticking means you aren't getting enough Amps to the starter.
Is the ground cable tight on the alternator bracket?
Is the battery cable tight on the starter? It's a soft stud so don't tighten it much more than 20ft/lbs.
Do the battery cables get hot?
Are the battery cables old...? They can get badly corroded under the insulation and still appear to be OK.

I'm not trying to be rude but your post is a little hard to read because it's one paragraph of text. Try breaking em up a little for readability.

[ryoung415]

Sorry about the formatting, it was almost a stream of consciousness to remember what all I've done and tried.

The good news is I did manage to finally get the motor to turn with a wrench on the crank pulley. It didn't make a difference though, so either the starter isn't in just right or all my teeth on my flywheel are shot, lol! I'm going to try shimming the starter and see if that makes any difference.

The original starter didn't have any shims at all. What would be a good thickness of shims to start with?

[SCOTI]

Ticking/clicking usually indicates a bad or loose connection. Check all the batt cable terminations. POS @ batt; POS @ starter. NEG @ batt; NEG @ engine/frame; NEG @ core support/fender. I'd eliminate that before suspecting/investigating the flywheel or shimming the starter.

Batt should also have close to 13volts.

[tylervalo]

I didn't read anything, but my gut instinct is a bad ground.