My otherwise nice running 5.3 got a new tranny put in it recently by myself. When lining up the torq converter bolts my helper rotated the engine the opposite was before I knew what was happening(but not even a full revolution of the flywheel), now I got that all installed , drove about 20 miles with it now being hard to start sometimes , a camshaft position sensor light on that never was, and now today I see a head gasket leaking and have water in oil!!! Could this all have been caused by rotating the wrong way such a small amount or just bad timing? I'm gonna pull heads and replace , and also replace the camshaft sensor, cam, etc. anything I may have damaged?? Thanks a million guys!!! Sorry so long winded

 

If I read this correct, you are asking if turning the engine backwards hurt anything?
No, it did not hurt anything, you can spin it any way you want while working on it.
When trans. was out, engine may have tilted and messed up cam sensor.

 

You probably pinched the cam sensor wires between the trans and the block.

 

no....

 

Thanks guys , knew you'd give positive input

 

If you have the castech 706 heads they are probably cracked. But not all 706 heads cracked.

 

Maybe you didn't get the converter in all the way and walked the crank forward. You should have been able to easily turn the converter with the transmissions fully bolted in.

 

can you tell me what this ^^^^^

and this^^^^^

have to do with each other?

 

I'm sure he could until he put the first bolt or two into the converter then he would have to turn the motor (flywheel/converter) to get to the other bolt holes.

 

Pushing the crank forward in the block will cause the cam/crank sensor (depending on Gen of motor) to lose connection because the crank has walked away from them. My cousin built an aluminum block 402 stroker for a guy and he decided to change converters about a week later and didn't get it in right, walked the crank, had backfires and bad timing and ended up wiping out the block.

So now you answer me...what does that have to do with the OPs issue?

 

No doubt...but it should be easy to turn by hand to line up the first bolt. That was my point. I've pulled plenty enough transmissions to know how easy it is to get wrong.

 

Did you figure this one out?

 

One head is leaking bad, in oil and outside on ground, so in assuming it is cracked- has caste have heads-, I have yet to pull the heads off yet though since I haven't found a replacement set of heads for the right price, and I'm not putting junk heads back on it!

 

It's odd that it would only be noticed after changing transmissions.