Well got the engine pulled and started tearing it down. Ran into a major problem tonight. The bolt in the end of the crank that holds the damper in place is in there solid. Probably corroded or something.

I took some steel flat bar and put a couple holes in it and bolted it up to the rear of the crank shaft to hold it from turning. I then put my breaker bar on the bolt on the front of the engine and started trying to loosen it. Yeah right!!

I put a socket on and pounded the heck out of it. I tried my pneumatic air impact gun. Used my hammer powered impact driver. Soaked in PB Blaster.

Then I broke out the big guns. Put my breaker bar on and a 6 foot extension of solid square tubing. It was hard to pull down hard enough because the whole motor on the stand wanted to tip over. I was trying to stand on the engine stand to keep it from tipping and pulling on this combined 8 foot or so extension. Eventually the socket slipped and showed signs of wanting to round off the bolt so I tossed the 12 point socket aside.

My only 17 mm 6 point socket was in 3/8" drive which I knew wasn't going to cut it but I gave it a shot anyways. Sure enough it just snapped the 3/8" drive clean in half once the force of that 6' + breaker bar got some pressure on it.

I checked the Haynes manual and it doesn't say anything about a left hand thread. Humm how do I get this off? I'm running out of ideas.

Here's us pulling the motor. That's my son lending a hand when he can.







After some tear down

 

run as much air pressure as you can to the impact... that plus pb blaster should work, if not hit the bolt with a blowtorch

 

I loosen that before I remove engine from car. Use the trans in gear and someone on brakes to lock the flywheel end of the crank.

Now that it's out you can find a way to lock the flywheel.

 

I had the regulator set at 90 PSI. Suppose I could crank it up to 120 but I risk destroying the impact gun I think. It's only rated 90 PSI.

I thought about hitting the bolt with heat but dampers usually have rubber in them and I was concerned with damaging it. I may have to though as it's in there good and solid.

 

Crankshaft is locked, that's not an issue. I took a couple pieces of heavy flat bar and drilled holes in them to match the flywheel bolt pattern and bolted them up there. As the crankshaft turned the bars locked up against the engine stand. The crank is not moving at all.

That nut is just seized in there so hard.

 

I cranked mine with a ratchet still on it
uber tightened it...the sound was not for the timid when the ratchet hit something and launched.. Can't believe it didn't break the bolt. Muckman..will your method break a gear or anything?...my IR 2131 won't break mine loose..I was about to order one of the crank hex tools and would love to get it loose..need to replace some mounts.

 

put it in a high gear with the e-brake on, car won't move or break anything.

we use this method for ka's, sr20s, pretty much every motor

the one that sucked the most was the ls7... 240ft/lb for the new arp crank pulley bolt plus another 110* on the bolt... Never felt more nervous with that 6ft cheater bar hanging down on it over a carbon fiber fender lol

 

cutting off the bolt head ought to relieve all of the tension lol

 

Ah, I've been running 120+ psi to my craftsman air gun ffor6 years now with no problems.

At this point get the crank locking tool from honda or whereever it should be around 30 or so bucks. Get it on the end of a breaker bar and put that down into the ground so it wont move. Might be worth trying.

Ok the real trick is heat with a long pipe over the end of the ratchet/ breaker bar. I just undid a stuck one on my ls this weekend. Took my mapp gas torch to it for a minute, the 4 ft pipe with slow steady pressure. It will break loose. If not, more heat lol. I find heat better than pb in this type of situation

 

such a common problem im sure every one would agree.
there is quite a few diffrent things you can do ive even seen a bar made to secure the undrive pully.
the hayes manual says to put a screwdriver in the flywheel.
i perfer to smack a 1/2 drive breaker bar with a good size hammer about ten or so time always does the trick.

what ever you do DO NOT heat the bolt unless you want to buy a new undrive pully.
the oem pully has ruber gaskets inbetween each belt section that act as a dampner for the crackshaft alot of people do not know this and if you heat it up it will ruin or easly break the pully take a look at it when you get it off its hard to notice.

 

Bolt the engine stand down to the floor LOL! Have your son hold a solid 1/2" drive 6 point impact socket that won't break with a solid breaker bar attached to it and find a good length of 2x4 to swing at the end of the breaker bar. It will take several good smacks but it'll break loose. And no, it's not a left-hand thread.

 

Just buy the damn tool for it

 

Oh shoot I know exactly what you mean. Actually I made a tool like that out of square tubing a few years ago to secure the crank on my cobra when I was assembling the motor and needed to hold the crank in the same manner. Forgot all about that till I read your post and a light bulb went off lol.

Heat concerns me due to the rubber normally found in factory front pulleys/dampners.

That's what I thought. It's pretty typical of OEM dampners.

There's a tool? By all means share. Or do you just mean a bar that bolts to the rear of the crank and hits the floor? I forgot about those and can definitely weld one up tonight.

 

no honda has a tool, its a big hexagonal wrench that fits in the pulley then has a big wrench that fits over the crank bolt

 

I managed to pop mine out by myself with my puny 145lb body, it does the trick. Just use a breaker bar on the bolt, with a long pipe extension and some good ole grunting

 

https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-civic-del-sol-1992-2000-1/crank-pulley-tool-1841839/

 

although if you have an impact that will do about 300lb/ft it should pop right off, thats how I got mine off

 

Ahh gotcha.

Yeah mine probably sucks. Maybe it's a good time to upgrade. I'll have to see what Sears has on my lunch break.

 

Found my old pics of how I did the cobra motor. It was a little different but same concept.

The bar I made



Threaded to the front of the pulley



Then locked on the ground



So where can I purchase the Honda hex tool from? Would REALLY like to find it locally today if possible

 

a dealer would be the only place (or online from a dealer)
but they don't exactly stock tools

 

they make them aftermarket too, but i doubt you can find one at a store. you can make your own if you can somehow find a 50mm width hex nut lol.

 

and even then you won't be able to break the nut loose on a stand or hoist, you'll flip the damn thing over (ask me how I know)

you need two people really, big people.

 

I got mine on Amazon for $15

 

Yea, buying the tool isn't going to help the situation here unless you can secure the engine stand or put the motor on the ground like Muckman. But then you're still stuck trying to break it loose with a cheater pipe and you were already unsuccessful at that. Go buy some 3/4" or 1" drive electric impact from Sears with some stupid torque rating, break the bolt loose, and then return the impact to Sears claiming it didn't do what you needed it to do. Lol!

 

A little heat goes a long way, i would heat it up slighltly and i bet it will come right off.

I see youre concern but i wouldnt heat it up to cherry red! but applying some heat should DEF help without doing any damage.

i used my small oxygen/map gas kit. It creates a smaller flame you can really focus on the bolt rather then the surrounding pulley like with a propane torch. Plus its much hotter so gets the bolt hotter quicker without heat soak on surrounding parts.

Again not too hot, but a little heat really loosens things up. When i use to do alignments i would always be suprised how well heat worked with some nuts/bolts