Hey guys,

I recently bought this Civic from a friend of mine for cheap for a daily so I could focus on getting my project cars up and going and I've run into an issue that I can't seem to figure out. First off, it's a 98 Civic LX, automatic, blah blah.

It started off that I had my crank pulley come loose on me. Tightened it back up and planned on pulling it all off and replacing the key and bolt and adding some loctite just to be safe. In the meantime, I've kept the crank pulley tool and whatnot with me just in case it came loose on me again which it ended up doing a few days ago. I tightened it back up and didn't make it a mile down the road before it was loose again, only this time, the bolt hadn't backed out any, so I figured the keyway had some damage and that was allowing it to shake a little and since it was snowing and it was late, I drove it home as it was.

As the car sits right now, the crank pulley is spinning freely from the crank. With the car on, the pulley does not move, and you can move it by hand with no issue. So that means my crank tool is useless in keeping the motor from spinning while trying to break the bolt loose. I attempted to put a break bar on the bolt and bump the starter with the injectors unplugged but it doesn't have enough power to break it loose.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to break this bolt loose? This is my first Honda but I've been around them enough to know my way around one.


Thanks

 

Impact gun.

 

Honda engines (other than the K-series and F20C) spin counterclockwise. You tightened the bolt even more doing that.

 

Wow bud, hopefully you didn't make any worst than it already is when you tried to bump it like that. Put the car in gear and apply brake and have someone hit the bolt with an impact gun. It looks like the key was not put in place at all when you tight it in.

 

My impact gun isn't budging it. May be because of my small air compressor, but currently trying to find something more powerful.



I was a little too desperate in hoping that the starter bump would work without completely thinking it through. Guess I should be happy it didn't have enough power to snap that bolt.

 

get the tool to hold the pulley in place.

 

A chain wrench will work wonders for this.

 

Wont work, the pulley is spinning freely on the crankshaft.

OP you need a good impact gun, you may also need a torch.

 

i assumed the inside piece with the giant nut is still intact. isn't the rubber after that?

 

That's not the problem, the problem is the pulley is worn from the other few times the bolt backed out and the key is cut off.

 

This happened to mine..... It took the proper tool (autozone or someone usually has it as a loaner tool) and 2 fat guys hanging off a breaker bar with a jack handle on it after hitting it a while with an impact wrench. Prior to getting the proper tool we broke 2 extenstion, craftsman breaker bar and socket, all 1/2" .

You will need a new pulley/harmonic balancer with a new woodruff key.

 

Couldn't find any one of my friends with a bigger impact and a decent compressor so dropped it off at the local tranny shop that does a lot of work for me. They're going to try and get it off for me and let me use their lift to put it all back together so fingers crossed they can get it out. Hoping the pulley and the crank come out unscathed and a new key is all I need. Crank damage would def be a bummer. I'll update with any progress. Thanks for the tips

 

Shop didn't have any issue getting the bolt out with their impact but unfortunately, not only is my pulley completely stripped out, it also damaged the crank pretty severely. So much for a cheap daily.