1924 4 cyl can't crank but can spin backward at flywheel ?

Car ran but stopped, probably due to gas flow problem, and I had it flatbedded home. I can spin the engine backward at the flywheel but it will not hand crank. NO broken trans gears, connecting rods are connected and look fine, and starting gears look good . Any advice would be appreciated.

Have you gone a full revolution in reverse? Or just turned it a few degrees? I would probably check to make sure it did not drop a valve into one of the cylinders first.

I will do a full revolution asap. Thanks.

Did a full revolution no difference. I was hoping there was a known common problem. I think I should look in the front on the engine ( timing gears and hand cranking mechanism) . Thanks for the advice and I'll keep looking.

Is your starter pinion engaged (not retracting) and the one-way clutch on the front of the starter generator causing this?

Starter pinion is not engaged. easily slides back and forth. I pulled the timing case off of the front on the engine and those gears also look good . Tomorrow I will look closely at the bottom of the dist. shaft. Clutch faced disks also move freely with the pedal depressed. If one of the rings had cracked and was somehow stuck in the block I would notice it while under the engine to spin it with the flywheel. But thanks for the interest.

rwolf

As the engine was running then suddenly stopped, and now unable to turn forward. As Brian Heil said it may be a problem with the one way clutch or the distributor gear. Remove the distributor and see if it will turn over.

The grooved washer between the water pump and the starter/generator had fallen out and was laying tilted in the housing. I assume this is why the engine would only spin in one direction. Now I can't get the starter to spin the engine. As soon as I manually engage the starter gears, the s/g stops. Had the s/g checked out and the shop says it runs good (he checked it with 12 volts). Maybe I should have it checked at another shop. Frustrated but looking for advice.

Is the engine turning over properly now using the hand crank. Will the car start with the crank handle. Check that the starter and generator brushes are engaging and disengaging properly when you push on the starter pedal. A previous thread covered this in detail.