Offcamber1

Ok, just need some affirmation here. 94 4x4 5sp. 22RE trying to replace front cover but can't get the front pulley bolt loose. Last weekend had the truck in 4low and 5th gear with wheels chocked, and someone standing on the brake pedal and was slipping the clutch when I put 4 feet of breaker bar/extender pipe on a 1/2 drive impact. after looking at my Haynes manual and on this site, I went out this week and bought a vise grip style chain wrench and an inner tube. Got that all on the front pulley and with all of the above duplicated we proceeded to break the chain wrench!

I'm about to go out and buy a bigger stronger chain wrench but wanted to make sure: Bolt comes off counter clockwise from the front right?

Any other suggestions? I suspect the previous mechanic used locktight so when I go at it the next time with the big farmer style chain wrench I will put some heat on the center of the bolt first.

man is this thing tight!

daved5150

iTrader: (1)

Go to 4crawler's site and here is the link to the page (hopefully it will help you):

http://4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks/...ingChain.shtml

Did you run the breaker bar to the driver's side frame?

I'm sure some of the local talent here will chime in at some point. Good luck...

snobdds

Worst case scenerio...take a dremel with a metal cutting blade on it and cut a slit in the washer. That large flange on the bolt puts a lot of pressure on the balancer to keep it in place. As soon as you take the surface pressure off the bolt, a 3/8 in drive ratchet can take it off.

Just don't knick the pulley, put a small piece of metal in the directioin your cutting to prevent any knicks. Any small knick will cause the pulley to wobble and...you don't want that.

Teuf

Subscribed.

donomite49

i used the starter when i did my 20r main seal and when i did the timing chain on my
22re.
pull the coil wire before. and just bump the starter.

scope103

I know that there are even books that okay using a chain wrench, but I am at a loss how you could possibly do that without damaging the pulley steel-on-steel.

You really need to build a holding tool. I, of course, am partial to this one: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...h-3vze-137934/ But there are plenty of other really good ones on this forum. Remember that you have to put that bolt back in, so you're going to need to hold it in the other direction against a lot of torque. (in theory, the chain wrench could do that, but you saw how well that worked. Just stay away from using the starter to loosen the bolt. That gets you nowhere; you still need the tool to put the bolt back in.)

The good news is that every tool I've seen on this site costs less than your chain wrench.

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

:wabbit2: I know my day has to be coming but everyone I took off using the 1/2" impact just came right off.

I always pull the radiator to give myself lots of room to work.

Good luck:jessica:

Resto-noob

iTrader: (3)

One out of the three did that for me. The other two took all I had-I try to do them first thing in the morning nowadays...

scope103

Your impact gun is better than mine if you can clear 200ft-lbs, but I already knew mine was marginal.

The question I have: How did you put the bolt back in? You can't use a torque wrench without something to keep the crank from turning (and you're holding it against 181ft-lbs (3vze).) And you can't hit 181 (or any other number) without a torque wrench.

donomite49

when i tightened mine i would just keep bumping the impact gun until it was maxed out.
after the first time it would come off with the impact. i never had a problem.

my 3.4 however, i made a holder and used a cheater bar to loosen and hold to torque to fsm specs. i did timing belt etc on the stand before installation.

not saying i did my 4cyl right i just got it done.

scope103

Got it.

(If your impact is powerful enough to remove a fairly-stuck bolt -- say 250-300 ft-lbs -- it's easily strong enough to snap off the bolt when tightening. The torque spec is supposed to be pretty close to the ultimate strength of the bolt. Otherwise, no one would every bother using a torque wrench. We all do iffy things, but we shouldn't be recommending them to noobs.)

toyospearo

I have done the starter trick a hundred times without any trouble.

donomite49

i used the starter trick after my impact (a CP or a borrowed bluepoint) did not budge it. i tightened with my impact and never had a problem,or i would have advised to do it by the book.

Offcamber1

Got it.

If you go into any barn where the farmer does maintenance on his tractors you will find a proper chain wrench hanging on the wall. I called a farmer that I used to go to church with, he pulled a heavy duty chain wrench off the wall...

As for the pulley, I protected it with a 10 inch garden tractor inner tube. Wrapped around just perfect.

Onward to the rest of the job now.

BTW, thanks to Dave5150 for the link. That has some great detail that is not in the Haynes manual I bought, like which bolt length goes where on the front cover. (I already knew about the front cover bolt that is under the distributor gear, it was mentioned in the Haynes book.

Ciao,

Kip

annoyingrob

A helpful hint for anyone that needs to do this in the future, take the spark plug out of the first cylinder, and run it to bottom dead center, then feed in a few feet of nylon rope into the spark plug hole. Rotate the engine by hand up to top dead center (counter-clockwise), and the piston will bind on the rope in the cylinder. Your engine is now locked in place, and you can torque on that bolt all you want. I used to do this all the time with my auto. Then, to get it apart, just crank the engine the other way a little bit, and pull the rope out.

scope103

Don't forget that this "locks" the piston in only one direction. You have to pull the rope out, run the piston past TDC, then put the rope back in, in order to torque the bolt back on.

The advantage of this method is that it uses stuff that's lying around, can't hurt your engine, and is unlikely to hurt you. Plus, it just sounds cool. The disadvantage is that nylon rope is springy, so it takes a sure touch with the torque wrench to get it back together.

slow-mo

When I replaced my engine I was fearing this issue of removing the crankshaft bolt because of all the stories here regarding not being able to remove this bolt. What Jim at 22RE Performance, where I bought my engine, told me is to heat up the bolt with a common propane torch, whack it a couple times with a hammer then use an impact gun on it. It worked. For the impact gun, all I had was a cheap-o Harbor Freight electric impact wrench and it zipped it right off.

Mind you, this was with the engine out of the vehicle. I'm not sure how much room you would have to swing a hammer with the engine in place.

scope103

Did you even try a regular wrench before mistreating the bolt? If your HF Impact is anything like mine, your crankshaft bolt had nothing near the required torque.

Which brings up my next question: how are you going to put it back on to 116ft-lbs (22re)? You're still going to need to build/buy/rent/invent a tool to hold the crankshaft while you put your weight on the torque wrench.

annoyingrob

Correct, it only locks in one direction, but to lock it in the other direction, you just need to give the crank one revolution in the direction it's free. You don't need to remove and re-install the rope.