vevro Posted August 23, 2004 Posted August 23, 2004 Just want to get some opinions from the club. I've been planning to change my timing belt and the other necessities for over three months now. Finally this weekend the inevitable happened. Like many others i planned on challenging the timing belt myself. I bought all the necessary parts and liquids from the dealer on Friday and on Saturday i got up early in the morning to start the operation. One aspect of the operation haunted for months that being of course the crankshaft pulley bolt and how i was going to loosen it. I've looked all over for possible solutions on how I'd be able to loosen the sucker myself and came to realization that the only practical way was to use a compressor and an air wrench. I went to Home Depo and bought a moderately powerful set for $210. The preliminary deconstruction in the engine compartment went very smoothly until i came face to face with the bolt itself. The air wrench didn't fit in the compartment with the radiator still in it, hence i had to take it out, eventhough i didn't have to if i had a smaller wrench. The air wrench and the compressor FAILED miserably, I couldn't believe my eyes. I've tried multiple times, still it led me nowhere. At this point, i recruited my father and my younger brother to build a home made device to hold the wheel in place while i try to loosen the bolt with a wrench myself. Three devices where build, all destroyed. Last suggestion was made to crank the car while a wrench is held firmly against the ground. The idea sounded very desperate to me and extreme dangerous, since it might break the bolt. In the end after four hours, the bold got the best of me. I kind of anticipated this might happen so i arranged with my mechanic that he would finish the job for me, which he did for $350 bucks. He did an excellent job and the car is quieter than it was before. My question now is what else could have i done to loosen the crankshaft bolt without a more powerful compressor? Any special tools?
99lsguy Posted August 23, 2004 Posted August 23, 2004 vevro, Sorry it was such a fight-------but glad it ended ok!! I imagine the torque on that bolt is 180 ft lbs or so......a mechanic's garage with a lift has the luxury of using a 3-5 ft "breaker bar"; which can put immence torque on a bolt. Ask the mechanic how he did it and his suggestions - are those reverse threads??
wwest Posted August 23, 2004 Posted August 23, 2004 Next time....... Use the air compressor to pressurize a cylinder to/at BDC (bottom dead center) of the power/exhaust stroke. On some automatic transmission cars you can remove a small panel and access the flywheel and hold/lock it in place.
vevro Posted August 23, 2004 Author Posted August 23, 2004 It was a breeze for the mechanic to loosen the bolt; he's got an enormous compressor (at least 10 feet high). Also, the bolt has reverse threads. The mechanic also mentioned that I should have tried cranking the car with wrench leaning against the ground. This seems like the only easy way out.
blake918 Posted August 23, 2004 Posted August 23, 2004 I just did my belt last weekend too. I used a small Coleman air compressor-it's about 12 gallons and 110 max psi...nothing fancy at all-with an impact wrench, and the bolt came right out.
bicol-ini Posted August 23, 2004 Posted August 23, 2004 hello, yes its hard sometimes for that crankshaft bolt, the mechanic was right about cranking the engine while a wrench is in place, i do this on all my cars, just to make to sure when cranking the treads are on the loosening rotation as its a reverse thread due to engine rotation, also a decent compressor a 15 gal 3 hp and air wrench will do it.
jzz30 Posted August 24, 2004 Posted August 24, 2004 hmmm.... so i guess the 1uz was a normal thread and after gen1 LS the threads went left hand? i remember mine being a right hand thread...
VBdenny Posted August 24, 2004 Posted August 24, 2004 Is there an "L" stamped on the bolt? Don't they usually do that with Left nahd threads?
vevro Posted August 24, 2004 Author Posted August 24, 2004 I don't recall seeing any L stamped on the bolt. I've also tried using the crankshaft pulley harmonic balancer from Autozone. I think it was designed to be used primarily for GMC vehicles; didn't work on my car. Anyone had any luck using the harmonic balancer?
jzz30 Posted August 25, 2004 Posted August 25, 2004 i always just shoved a buch of shop towels between the belt and cam gear. always worked.
mossyoak Posted August 25, 2004 Posted August 25, 2004 I have a LS400 1996. Has anyone documented the timing belt change so I can use as a guide. I have seen the writup in the professional Mechanics guide at the library but as in most of those publications the writup is lacking. Ferd
blake918 Posted August 25, 2004 Posted August 25, 2004 Ferd, VMF has it on file here: http://www.lextreme.com/timing.htm . He walks you through it step by step in detail. It's superb! Thanks VMF! :D
VBdenny Posted August 26, 2004 Posted August 26, 2004 Blake man, gotta give it to you for that site. I bookmarked it.
blake918 Posted August 26, 2004 Posted August 26, 2004 I don't deserve the thanks! Our good buddy VMF and the guys at Lextreme deserve the thanks! Here's their home page and "tech articles" if you'd like to see all that they have(I don't know how much exploring you did, and the vast majority pretains to the origional LS): http://www.lextreme.com http://www.lextreme.com/tech.html
SKperformance Posted August 26, 2004 Posted August 26, 2004 their was a guy a while ago who had the same problem on his LS i forgot what he did to finally get it off.
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