LudeAct

Vehicle was abandoned on a hill. The car won't start and won't crank either. Under the hood I could smell the clutch, like the smell of hard braking. When the tow truck arrived, an attempt to jump start the vehicle failed. Again, no crank what so ever. Vehicle then towed to a shop and the mechanic is saying the flywheel is stuck. He says there's a possibility of a blown engine, but didn't mention the clutch.

Any ideas guys?

gstrudler

What year/model car and how was it running before? Can you turn the engine over by hand using the crank pulley bolt?

Hate to say it, but if someone stole it, it smells under the hood like something is possibly burned, and the car was ditched, I'd say there's a fair chance the motor is toast. The question is how bad and what it would take to fix it. Unless you got lucky and the ignition or something simple burned up.

snobordboy

Yeah, it was probably stolen, and joyridden to hell until the engine seized up. The clutch won't have anything to do with it, except maybe allowing the car to roll if you take it out of gear. Tough luck, hopefully you have insurance to cover it.

LudeAct

Motor was replaced before with about 60k miles. Mechanic says the starter is not working but also tried turning the crank manually, but was extremely difficult.

holmesnmanny

You need to do some diagnosing yourself. Can you manually turn the crank ?

LudeAct

I haven't attempted to turn the crank but my mechanic said he tried already and it was real difficult to turn. What are some of the steps I should take to confirm that the motor is in fact blown? Can a blown clutch be the cause?

snobordboy

The clutch has NOTHING to do with the starter being able to turn the engine.

If the clutch wasnt working but everything else was ok, the starter would just attempt to move the car while turning the engine. If the clutch works, or you can put the trans into neutral, the starter will then just be turning the engine and the input shaft of the trans. Generally a dead clutch will be slipping anyways, in which case it would just spin.

At this point, I would go with the fact that the engine is probably toast, and maybe the trans and clutch as well. If the car is worth it otherwise, just drop a jdm swap in, if not, sell the shell or junk it.