The crankshaft pulley on my 2000 se fell apart. It ruined both belts and the crank position sensor. The problem now is trying to get the old pulley off. The bolt won't budge. It's hard to hold the pulley from moving while trying to loosen the bolt. Any ideas how to get the bolt out. I tried heating it, bracing a breaker bar against the floor and hitting the starter but nothing worked. Any ideas????

 

Impact?

 

Imact, you are talking about the harmonic balancer right?

 

Already tried the impact. Wouldn't budge it.

 

VQ's do not have harmonic balancers. They're balanced internally.

 

if you check the stickies, i believe the instructions for installing an underdrive pulley also tells you how to take the stock crank pulley of.

 

: . . . . .

 

A good impact gun should zip it off, you can hold it with one hand while using the impact gun.

 

There are two ways to remove the crankshaft pulley.

1. Use an impact wrench. Drench the pulley bolt with lubricant and let it sit for at least 30 minutes. Alternate between forward and reverse on the impact wrench. Then just keep it on reverse, counter clockwise. Evenutally, the bolt will move. I just did it three weeks ago.

2. Use a breaker bar. You'll have to remove the oil pan rear cover plate and set a suitable tool into the ring gear so that the crankshaft cannot rotate. Be careful not to damage the signal plate teeth.

 

 

3. Use a breaker bar (+ socket of course ) - set it against the floor, crank the engine for half a second. Be done. Works like a charm.

 

I just changed mine two weeks ago. I too couldn't budge it by hand. As Teddie18 mentioned, I sprayed it with lubricant and let it sit. The impact wouldn't budge it but I tried the forward/reverse trick a few times and then just held it in reverse. After what seemed like forever, it finally broke loose. I was using an electric impact wrench. I don't know if they have more or less torque than an air impact.

 

Thanks for all the replys. I tried the starter trick several times after soaking the bolt overnight and still didn't work. Looks like I'll have to try to get a bigger impact and try that again. As far as posting pics I'm stuck with dial up so by the time the pics would up load I'll probably have a new car!!!

 

electric impact weak. Use IR 2135TI air gun
or use a breaker bar and hold the pulley from not turning with a long chain pipe wrench. It's like a breaker bar with a chain at the end. Tighten chain around pulley and jam it against control arm or something and socket with johnson's bar or breaker bar with socket to take nut out.

 

I borrowed a 3/4" impact gun and it finally let go. Man that was on there tight. Thanks for the help.

 

Better than too loose.

 

For future reference for others:

Use the belt to hold it, you have to wrap it around the pully almost 360 degrees and tuck it under itself, tuck the right side under so when you try to loosen it will suck the belt in. Once you tuck it in you have to hold tension on it constantly while you slowly spin the pulley to the left. Take the leftover loop and wrap it around the alternator pulley. Again you must keep tension on it the entire time until you break it loose. Once it's taught use a gigantic breaker bar to break it loose. I had one on a tundra that was > than 800ft/lb's! I bent a 3/4" round solid breaker bar before it finally broke loose, it was pretty crazy, I had probably 7 feet of piping on it as a cheater bar.

The belt trick might not make sense untl you start doing it, but you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

Great idea. I would have to yake a look at the pully and belt to figure it all out, but it seems like it would work.

Just curious, is the belt toast after that? I assume so.