I have my 2.2HDi in various bits still (head off, valves out etc, not had much time for this project of late) but something I have noticed is that the crank isn't so easy to rotate by hand, or at last not as easy as I had expected. Throughout a 360deg rotation there's free-running areas and stiffer areas. No indication of engine trouble (beyond a possible gasket failure hence head off) before I started.
Is my expectation that it should freely turn through the whole cycle plain wrong? I know this engine (DW12TED4) has balancer shafts, would they make the crank feel 'unbalanced' when rotating by hand (but balanced when cylinders are firing) or should it actually feel perfectly smooth and free through the whole crank cycle and something is actually wrong?
It has gone through 2 or 3 dual mass pulleys in the last 5 years (which I mostly put down to bad luck), but the more I think about it the more I worry now these two things may be related?
C5 2.2HDi crank stiffness
Moderator: RichardW