Hi Everyone,

My first post... and I thought that this was worth sharing with everyone.

A little background... I bought a '96 Civic a couple of years ago. This is
the car that I drive when I can't drive my other car ('58 Vette My Vette ).

I love this Civic for many of the same reasons that I love the Vette.
The two cars are very similar... no A/C, no P/S, no P/W, no CD, no A/T,
except the Civic has power brakes (the Vette doesn't). No frills driving
enjoyment. The only thing that the Civic is missing is a V8 and the classic
styling.

Well, the Civic just turned 90,000, so it was time for the dreaded timing belt
swap. I spent a couple of days researching and everything I read said that
removing the crank bolt was the most difficult part. Most sites said to
remove the starter and insert a screwdriver into the flywheel teeth to
prevent the crank from moving (I tried but the darned thing kept falling out) I
found a site that showed some holes in the crank pulley and suggested
putting bolts in the holes and a long bar to prevent the pulley from moving
(can't find the site now)... Well, after I got the thing apart I found out that
my pulley didn't have the holes. A week later... I finally figured out the proper
way to remove the crank bolt. Here are a couple of picts...






I picked up a piece of 2" x 2" steel angle bracket at Home Depot and cut two
pieces with the following dimensions... 2" High x 1" Wide x 2" Deep. I cut
them with a hand hacksaw. It is better to make it a little large and file it
down to make a perfect fit. If the pieces are too small then they are useless.


Just for the record I figure I put about 200 ft. lbs on that darned bolt.
Probably more than the engine is capable of producing.

Well, I spend most of my free on the corvetteforum.com but I'll stop in on
occasion. Hope this method is useful to someone...

 

WAY overtorqued. I'd take that thing back off and retorque it to the correct specs (132 ft/lbs I believe) as overtorquing can often be as damaging as not torquing enough.

Also, I personally wouldn't be caught dead using a torque wrench as a breaker bar. You can easily jack up the calibration making it useless.

Thanks for the tips...

 

Yeah thats way to much. Its not uncommon for the crank bolts to snap off. And they also sell a tool now i think its like 70 bucks. www.summitracing.com

 

I thought he meant he put more than 200 ft/lbs to break the bolt loose.

 

Who knows... :dunno:

Air tools own. :yes:

 

i was a little :ugh: about the torque wrench as a breaker bar. i just use an impact gun, takes that sucker right out

 

Damn, I never really thought about messing up the torque wrench, well I guess I'll have to have it checked out before I use it again.

I've never used an impact wrench. Are you saying that an impact wrench would have removed the bolt without any other special tools or removing the starter? (If yes, then - double damn).

Yea, that was 200 to break it loose. I torqued it to 130 (assuming that the wrench was still good) when I put it back on.

I suppose that the first thing I should have done was to sign-up here and asked the proper way to remove the bolt... Oh well, live and learn...

 

Actually, this way looks good to me. When I tried to remove this bolt I rented electrical impact wrench and had no luck with that. I jammed pulley with large wise-grips. It worked but I messed up a pulley a little.

 

I always use a 1/2" impact wrench and the bolt begs for mercy when it sees me coming... then quickly submits. No stopping an Ingersol Rand 1/2" impact with 170PSI.

Love the Vette by the way... Always been a fan of 50+ year old cars. Check out my web page and visit any of the links that start with 2004 if you don't believe me. There are a few Vettes in there... like some '65 fuel injected cars and the Mako Shark...

 

:lmfao: I love to see people use a torque wrench to loosen bolts then wounder why there head is leaking after torquing the head bolts hehe!!!!! lesson learned I guess.