Engine won't fully rotate! HELP!

[Cotamotor]

Hey there peoples! happy holidays and a happy new year to all of you!

I've got a 98 windstar that had some performance issues, then the engine shut down. Trying to restart it later, the starter TRIES for a sec then locks up - SO, hooked it up to another car, thinking the batt. may be low? Still nada. Replaced the starter, thinking it might have been going bad (still trying to diagnose the engine not turning over all the way) and with the new starter, the engine will TRY to turn over, gets about halfway and then causes enough resistance to stop the starter dead in it's tracks! SOO not sure what I'm looking at, was curious what the rest of you might have come across? trying to turn the engine over with a BIG socket and BIG rachet gets it to the point of resistance (soft feeling, doesn't feel like anything metal or hard is stopping it, just progressively gets harder to turn till you can't??) Took off the accessory belt too, thinking the alt or compressor seized?? still no go! I was thinking maybe a broken cam chain or something, but figured I'd feel a "clunk" from metal on metal resistance somewhere in the engine. Nothing like that, feels like there's a rubber band almost that gets tight to the point it won't turn anymore, then comes back a bit in order to release tension.

If anyone could help me figure out what I'm looking at, I'm curious whether it'll be something easy to fix or if I'm better off to look into a replacement engine? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

-Cota

[12Ounce]

I would remove all the plugs and then try again to rotate by hand ... hoping that coolant doesn't come out of a plug hole.

[garync1]

I would first remove the plugs and remove the main drive belt. From that point see if you can turn by hand. The reason for removing the drive belt and plugs takes all the accessory and some of the compression load off the engine. If it does not turn over from there you most likely have an internal problem. When it was running running rough before did it give an engine light.? If the timing chain was going bad seems to me it would have tripped a code for that. Cam sensor should have picked out a problem. If it were a drive accessory you should have picked up a belt squeal. But if the belt was new i can see it trying to pick up the load with out a squeal.Causing a no turnover problem. hope its nothing major.