I'm new here, I've been pretty much just following along and read what everyone else has been saying for the last month. I bought an 85 from one of my friends for 250 bucks but it has a blown apex seal. I've been tearing it down gradually and have found a big *** lock nut on the flywheel.

is there anyway that someone has found to remove this without buying the 54mm socket or whatever else is needed?

 

I use a 2 1/8 inch socket on a 3/4 drive. I have had some that came off easy and some that an impact gun couldn't even pull off. You can try a big crescent wrench with a good pipe for a cheater bar on the end but I believe this to be suicide. At the very least you will end up inventing some new 4 letter words in the process. You also need to keep the engine from spinning. Get creative here. The Mazdatrix tool for doing this is nothing more than a straight piece of steel from a hardware store with a few holes drilled in it for bolts. Good luck, have fun, and don't hurt yourself too bad.

Fred

 

To answer your question: No, the nut can only be taken off with a 54mm or 2 1/8th inch socket. You'll break adjustable wrenches, and hurt yourself. If you have any friends that are mechanics, just throw the engine in the back of a vehicle, take it to a shop, and get them to impact it off.... you'll be glad you did... Then again, I got mine off with a pair of vice-grips crammed under the flywheel to hold it still, my friend holding the engine on the floor still, and me reefing down on a huge (3 foot long) cheater bar on the end of a 3/4 inch drive rachet... (I only weigh 140lbs)

Jeff

 

Both times Ive done it, I used a 2 1/8 socket with a 3/4 drive impact. To hold the flywheel on the first engine I didnt car to much about the internals (just tearing apart a dead engine to see how it works type thing), so I just wedged wood blocks behind the flywheel till it brok loose. On the second one, I used a spare front engine mount thing, and put a bolt through one of the holes in the mount into a bolt hole on the flywheel for the clutch, and then a bolt through the mount to a hole in the engine "block" where the bellhousing bolts up. Worked great. Thats how I did it . I also tried using many different (and dangerous) things before I broke down and got out the compressor (pretty bad when you have one, just too lazy to use it eh?), and about 5 seconds of duh duh duh duh, then vroooom, and it was off . Thanks to Mike-P-28 for encouraging me to use the air tools .

~T.J.

 

Oh, and when I took my second one off, I had it resurfaced for a new clutch (always a good idea if you ask me). To put it back on, I have a torque wrench that goes up to 250 ft/lbs, so I set er there, and wrenched like there was no tomorrow. I eventually got her to pop at 250, and then added a torque multiplier, and got it to right around 300 or whatever the book says, I cant remember...Worked fine. Although, I had a RB header that was in just the right spot for me to grab onto and use for leverage .

~T.J.

 

Get the right socket and use an impact wrench to remove it. Easy as pie.

 

Yelp takes about 3 seconds

DD DDDDDD DDDDDDDD DDDDDD Vrooooooooooom and the nut is off

 

guess im getting a 54 mm socket...

thanks guys