crankshaft comes to hard stop near pistion 1 tdc

did you inspect the distributor cap for cracks?

Thanks for your reply. As soon as I heard the noise after I started the engine, I turned it off. When I was trying to figure out the problem, I had the distributer cap off. The hard stop I'm referring to more like a mechanical interferrence issue---like possibly a cylinder hitting a valve.

sounds like you broke a rod to me, the SOHC is a non interference motor so should be no valve train issues,, so that leads me to think that you broke a rod, is there a clank when it stops rotating? drop the oil pan and you'll be able to see whats really goin on in there,, like manually/physically wiggle the rods and even shine a light up there and you should be able to see if the rods or anything is broken and/or in the way.. let us know what you find though,, DO NOT attempt to start the car again til you get the issue sorted out though

Thanks for the info. Good to know that the SOHC is a noninterference valve/piston engine. That rules out a couple issues.

well yeh but if its a rod you might just gouged the cylinder walls and chances are if that happened you wont be able to save the block, where as if it were the valve train you could just get some new valves (valve job)

so am i correct in the way that i understand this that you cant get the engine to turn over/rotate past that no1 position? it gets there and just slams stopped?

oh and possible crank and other bad things i forgot to mention with the broken piston rod scenario

so did you ever find out what happened? interested to know

No. I haven't pulled the pan yet. My best guess at the moment is a connecting rod issue. Thanks for your inputs

removed the tming belt. Both cams rotate as expected. Pulled the pan. No signs of rod or bearing issues. I replaced the clutch not to long ago. I wondering if I should slide the tranny back and have a look -see at the clutch-pressure plate.

well you could have someone turn the crank while you watch from underneath and see what's going on in there,, remove the plugs so there's no compression,, and if you still cant see what's binding it then I guess do like you said with the transmission

oh btw incase you didn't know, but you should position the cams to a position that the valves wont get hurt before you turn that crank with no timing belt on

ever figure out whats going on or wrong?