As I'm adding more parts to the engine I'm rebuilding, and reading its Haynes and other manuals, I get more confused with those parts that should let the crankshaft "free spinning", as said in the manuals. For instance, when applying torque to the crankshaft or conrod bearings, they say "be sure everything spins free" or "assure yourself the crankshaft spins freely".
When I installed the crankshaft, and after some back and forth with the conrod bearings, I can turn it with bare hands and if I break the inertia good enough it would spin itself for 1/4 of turn or little less. When I installed the conrods, they were quite stiff...massaging the rings and the bearings made me now possible to turn the crankshaft by hand but it is not really really loose, it needs some little effort. It does turns, if I attach a wrench to the pulley bolt. If I put one piston, without rings, and torque its conrod bearing, I can (now :-) ) turn the crankshaft but it won't spin by itself like the crankshaft alone. Reading the bearings' oil/metal residue I can see no high spots, no line scratches and quite uniform oil layer.
So question would be: "Spin (the crankshaft, with conrod installed for instance) freely" means "effortlessly spin by bare hand" or would "spin by little force of a wrench" be just right?