Did you verify the ring end gap prior to installing on the pistons?
Some are file to fit.
Did you slip each piston into the cylinder without the rings to verify they fit?

Or you may have got oversize rings for your pistons.
I have also had an oil ring catch the cyl lip as it was going in.

Make sure you are not damaging a cyl wall if you have a ring issue or you will be boring or sleaving it again.

Someone wiser than me will cut in here. I'm an amateur, having rebuilt a Hudson engine exactly once (38 years ago). But I'll stick my neck out: after you had installed the rings in each piston, were you able to slide each piston up and down in the cylinder with relative ease?

If you used the original pins in the pistons (this is a unique Hudson feature), the ends of each ring are cut to fit snugly around the pins and you must get them all fitted correctly. If the ends of any ring have not seated properly around the pin, then the ring will not compress properly and will rub against the cylinder wall and this may be your problem.

Since the engine is still apart and you have complete access, you might try removing the cap from each rod, and then manually sliding each piston (with its rod) up and down within the cylinder for ease of movement. If one or more pistons seem to bind, then you might try pulling them out the top, and then re-installing them, paying particular attention to the seating of the ring on its pin, and it slides into the bore. (I assume you're using a ring compressor as you install the pistons.)

If you removed the pin and are using non-pinned rings, you might still want to make sure they went into the cylinder correctly.

I always check each ring in the cyl w/out the piston just to check gap. with me, what you are describing usually ends up being a rod bearing not seating in right. I check the feel each one I install and it gets a little harder to turn each one I install, but it shouldn't be that bad. sometimes install in the cap the bearing moves slightly causing a burr and you can really feel the difference when it happens when you install that one and then try to turn it. sometimes they don't want to slide on and off the rod bolts easy. I would not try to run it if it's that tight!

Stanley,
We need a lot more info here. Without knowing your level of expertise in this activity and all details of the rebuild, its very difficult to surmise what the issue may be. Was the crank re-ground, are the rods re-Babbitted and correctly sized, were they straightened as a final operation, converted to inserts, cylinders bored/honed to correct size/finish/clearance......the list goes on.
The "splashers" are particularly sensitive to errors in bearing fit and will take any opportunity to fail if things aren't right. How many times have we heard the old sob story "I just had my Hudson splasher rebuilt and it only lasted a couple of hundred miles!"
That said, if you are able to turn the engine with a long screwdriver at the front (I assume you are referring to the hand crank lugs on the dampener/pulley bolt)it may simply be the normal friction between a freshly finished bore and new pistons/rings. Since the effort increases proportionately with addition of each rod it implies a fairly consistent change. That would be the case even if things were perfect, but the question remains, "how much is too much?"
The only advice that I am confident to offer in the absence of more info is, don't button it up until you are satisfied that it is correct.....this ain't a race.
Frank

Frank's right. Find the problem before buttoning up and firing the engine.

It sounds like ring or piston drag to me.

Best practice is to check each ring in its cylinder before ever putting ring on a piston, which also should be checked in its cylinder.

Lube everything when building engines, using assembly grease or some like white Lubriplate. Engine oil is good on rings and each cylinder needs to be wiped with a clean oil-saturated rag.

In my earlier post, I had mis-read a post (Stanley vs Stacy) and took it to mean that you had checked ring gap before assembly. Robert is absolutely correct in that you must check each and every ring for correct gap!. It's a tedious process but a critical one. Just carefully work each one into a cylinder (I'm assuming they are all exactly alike), then push it gently down a bit with an inverted piston to "square it up" in the bore. Use feeler gauge to check for correct end gap. Although it not likely the culprit in your case since everything is at "room temperature", it's important down the road.
Frank

Due to all the feedback on this subject and since this is my first complete rebuild,I have talked to Southwester engine rebuilders here in Roswell and they will fit and measure and do what is nessasary to insure that the job is done right. Without the proper tools and someone close by to advise me ,I think it's to big of an undertaking for me. Again I want to thank all of you for your advise.
Stan

I hope you have it all worked out by now.

But - Sometimes we assume more than we should.

I presume your cylinders were finally sized by honing and have a proper cross-hatch finish,

If not honed to final size, single-point bored finish is way too rough and will eat the new rings, on top of appearing tight because of the drag of the rings on the (way too rough) cylinder finish,

I also assume that everything is hospital clean clean clean. Way cleaner than it has to be to eat off it.

If not, the gritters that are on a freshly machined engine that hasn't been washed after all machine work is finished may be causing the tightness.

There's probably something else that I don't think of right now that could be the root of the problem.

Good luck.

Maybe we need to gather some input from folks over time, to come up with a "torque to turn it" figure that's typical for a properly rebuilt engine that hasn't been started and run. In my recent experience with my '47 Eight, it took a surprising amount of torque to turn it over. Mostly piston ring to cylinder wall friction, noted as I installed more piston assemblies. (rods all turned easily on their journals, and bare crank spun easily in its bearings).

This is slightly off-topic, but speaking of rings: what are all of your opinions on using chromed rings? I had my 3x5 re-ringed in 1999 and burned a lot of oil on my way to the National that year. (Funny, though: I never actually saw it coming out the tailpipe.)

It turned out that the rings used for the overhaul, had been chromed (or were chromium...I've forgotten, now).

Someone told me that these rings are so hard, that they never "wear in", so I asked the fellow who'd done the job, to redo it with regular rings.

I only bring this up because Stanley wants to do everything right, and if be any chance he happens to be using chromed rings, he might want to re-think this. Or, maybe not!

Regarding how tight it should be, I can add a little:

It is very common for newly rebuilt Model A Ford engines (I hate to keep mentioning Model A's, but I've had them since the 1960's.)to be too tight to turn by hand and be most easily started by pulling the car.

Some rebuilders do what they call run the engine in, usually by driving it with a big lathe motor. Ford did this by driving the newly built engine with an electric motor, waiting for the current draw to decline to a pre-chosen value.

Once I put two new main caps on one and refitted (blued and scraped) all the other Babbitt bearings, finishing on the morning we were planning to leave for the state meet. Pulled car to start; drove 30 to 35 mph for 180 miles to the host motel, arriving in the wee hours the night before the meet began. Crashed.

Next morning, the engine was perfectly free as if nothing had happened. The cylinders of course, had nothing to do with the tightness.

Precision insert bearings should never be as tight as these fitted Babbitt bearings were.

Well-fitted main bearings on a Model A should leave the crankshaft in an otherwise bare block capable of being turned by hand. Perhaps not easily, but capable of being turned by hand.

As one adds rods and pistons, the drag increases. Rods and pistons on a Model A are put on in pairs (1 and 4, 2 and 3) precisely because the crank may be hard to turn.

I'd have to imagine a splasher Hudson would be similar.

True. Chromed rings are harder'n a......well never mind, and aren't a good choice for a rebuild where the cylinders weren't properly prepped for the job, i.e., bored/honed to a Perfect Circle. If you are just doing a re-ring job, C/I is best. With Cr rings, the cylinder seats to the ring as opposed to the other way around (or a combo of both).
Specifically in the Hudson Chrome alloy blocks (they're not Chrome-moly as some say), the likelyhood of the cylinder "wearing in" to the ring is much less. There is also the issue of break-in procedure. This presents a dilemma when doing a rebuild. The procedure for chromed rings is accomplished by loading the rings heavily at start-up and for a period thereafter to initiate wear-in, alternating with a "rinse cycle" of un-loaded operation. This was to facilitate break-in before cylinder "glazing" could form. The down-side is that we don't like to load our rebuilt engines before a good break-in period. What's a mother to do?
This may all be BS since the Chromed top compression ring is the only difference (I think) and his issue was with oil consumption.
Frankly, Running into a set of Chromed rings for a 175/212/254 isn't very likely any more, right?

Oh.....and the required plug:
Although not applicable to the splashers, full-flow oil filtration for pressure lubed engines virtually eliminates the risk of accelerated wear during the break-in period by assuring that the particles thus generated are removed [i]before[/i] the oil is re-introduced into the oil gallery.
Frank

The blocks were chrome alloy while the camshafts were nickel -chromium-molybdenum-iron alloy.

Giving this the thought that I should have to begin with, I see that I launched into a rant about chromed top compression rings and ignored Jon's message that was probably about the chromed, 3-piece oil ring set for the 3rd groove. Seems that I typically find that in #3 and a C/I in #4, sometimes C/I in both, but never a chromed C/I in either. A chromed-rail, 3 piece #3 oil ring set may have been his culprit and the replacement plain C/I ring cured it.
The break-in exercise has nothing to do with oil rings since they aren't subject to additional radial forces due to cylinder pressure as is the case with a top compression ring and, to a lesser degree, the #2.
So......never mind.
F