Ok me and my brother swapped out his motor on sunday because of a leaking head gasket. On tuesday he went to start it and it started to crank as if it was going to turn over but it just stopped. When he tried again it clicked as if the starter was dead. When he checked the starter one of the bolts was not tight which caused the starter to die. He got another starter and tried it and it just clicks like the starter is unable to turn the motor. When he tried putting a breaker bar on the crank pulley and turn it it doesnt move. It turns the opposite way maybe an inch or less but thats it. We called up a local nissan performance shop and he said that it may have blown when we tried starting it up because of the huge dent in the lower oil pan. He said he's seen it happen on 300zx's with smaller dents then what we have. The dent somehow starves the engine of oil. I dont completely understand it how that could happen but he's usually 100% right. I guess I'm just trying to find out if theres anything else we should try to diagnose the issue. The motor is a vq30DE.

 

Sorry but your situation is not clear, first you mention swapping the engine, wich make me think that you got the engine replaced by another one, right ? or did you mean that you fixed the blown head gasket ?

Maybe I'm old fashion but a blown head gasket is nothing good and is often the sign of a blown engine, therefore you wont be able to turn that crank pulley even with a 20 foot perch. I've seen similar situation but the problem was a bad solenoid on 3 different starter, the other thing is a bad battery would trigger that noise on a starter.

The fact that you mentioned there is a big dent on the lower oil pan make believe there might be a snap rods in there so this engine need a rebuild.

If you want to rebuild I have many parts that I could sell you to build that engine.

 

We took out the engine with the blown head gasket and put another engine in the car. The new engine has the large dent in the lower oil pan (the small steel one). I just think the motor is siezed. So we'll probably end up pulling it and finding another one.

 

why not drop the lower pan and have a look around 1st

 

He did that tonight and found peices of a coil pack and small metal shavings. He said the dent in the oil pan was so bad it was touching the oil strainer inside.

 

pieces of a coilpack??? how the heck does that end up in an engine? I would take the engine back where it came from for selling you an engine that was way screwed up before you got it

 

Ok I see, so you have a bad engine, time for a rebuild.

 

sounds like a piston is warped so bad it wont turn, or the motor is flooded.....

 

Its not flooded. The motor was run for a while with only 5 sparkplugs by the previous owner. He actually drove the car to the shop and had the motor replaced. We figured a missing spark plug wouldnt hurt much and it was worth a try especially since he paid next to nothing for the engine. I'm guessing it ended up melting the coilpack in the cylinder where the spark plug was missing and the plastic ran down into the engine.

 

that sucks, well atleast you have everything you need for a 3.5swap now