recently did engine swap in my 07 jk. i swaped the 07 engine out with an 08 jk engine. i am not sure what the problem is exactly. i can remove the plate that covers the bottom of the flywheel and watch the starter kick out and engauge the wheel but it will not turn it. what would cause this?

 

The starter might not be shimmed properly. Grab a screw driver and manually extend the gear to see what the clearance is like.

 

Broken teeth on the flywheel? I had a Ford Pinto (gosh, I hate to admit that--it was my ex-wife's!) that happened to. We had to manually turn the engine with the fan blade (back when they were belt driven) to push the flywheel past where the broken teeth were sometimes when starting. Then it would go around smoothly until it reached that screwed up section, wind up real fast, then slam into the teeth further along the ring gear. LOL. Finally gave in after a couple months of nursing it along and had to replace the flywheel.

 

First off can you turn the eng over by hand? Try it with the spark plugs removed to make it easy. Manual or auto? Nothing caught in the bellhousing? All bolts tight. Battery fully charged? If you remove the starter does it work ?

 

yes i was able to turn it over by hand before installing. all the bolts were torqed down everywhere. tried turning it over in neutral without the spark plugs and couldnt get anywhere with it. im just gonna back up the tranny and converter, move it around a bit then try again. its the only thing i can think of doing at this point.