Hi all I had to pull out my freshly built pinto as I had a knocking noise which turned out to be a loose flywheel. Anyway I stripped the engine down to check everything but now that the bottom end is assembled it is really hard to turn over by hand. It seems when I torqued up the big ends to 42 nm it got tighter and tighter to turn by hand when as when I built it the first time i could turn it no worries. Is there anything I could have done to make it go tight like this?

Did you mark the end caps? If you have them in the wrong position that could cause it to bind up

Going by you previous thread you only pulled the sump off to inspect....... Is the head on now and your trying to turn against compression....even with spark plugs out it will still be a lot harder to turn if the timing belt installed as your turning the camshaft actuating valves etc.

If the head isn't on and there is a big difference between now and initial build I would definitely recheck everything while at this stage. Strip all 4 pistons out, inspect if nothing obvious...then add 1 at a time making sure turning over after each...it should progressively get harder to turn over after each piston is installed and big end torqued to spec. If after installing one of the pistons it becomes very hard to turn you found yourself the offending one.....

Good luck

Cheers

I stripped the whole motor to check everything just for peace of mind. When I put the pistons back in after each one I rotated them and after each piston it got tighter now to turn it I need a breaker bar on the front and a big flat head screwdriver on the rear locked between the flywheel bolts to get it to turn

Sounds like you got the bearing caps mixed up or turned around
 
 

They are all numbered so they are all in the right spot might just be the wrong way around I'll try that and see how I go