Okay, me and a guy are working on his S5 GXL. We are trying to convert the car to a 5-speed from automatic. We were doing well until we got to the flexplate.

We can get the plate off, but the counterweight seems to be stuck. We have tried beating on the counterweight alone and the flexplate + counterweight for over two hours. It has not budged. We tried using a puller, but that does not do any good either. Any suggestions?

 

haha me and project84 just went through that. go rent a gear puller. Trust me.. this SUCKS... At least it did for us.

I started with the puller, got it tight. Used a 350ft/lb impact wrench... got it TIGHTER... Then got a 3ft pipe, stuck it on a craftsman socket... and went to town.
About 3 full turns later... Im pushing down on the pipe, all the sudden All my weight goes flying into the frame rail, and I here a loud.. *Very* loud ping... CLUNK. I thought... POS ratchet. I hit my head pretty hard on the frame rail. After I got up... I found the gear puller 5 feet behind the car, and the counterweight wedged between the jackstand and the rear carrier. Made a pretty good impression on casted iron...

Taking that thing off sucks... And is ******* dangerous. I didn't think it would pop quite as much as it did. Good thing i wasn't under the car trying to take it off, could have easily impailed me...

 

using the puller we got just bends the flex plate. should we get a 2 or 3 jaw puller and use that right on the counterweight. what type of puller did you use?

or i was thinking of getting a welder to come in and cut the counterweight off with a torch.

 

ummm.. Remove the flywheel nut, but not all the way off. remove the counterweight bolts first... smack the flywheel a few times, it will pop right off...

then use the puller on the counterweight...

 

a welder? listen its not that tough. The auto flexplate doens't weigh more than 7lbs and will probbly just break if you tryto pull it.

There are several bolts that bolt the counterweight to the flexplate. Remove those bolts, remove flywheel nut. Hit the flexplate with a rubber mallet ( i didn't have to it, it fell right off) if it doesn't fall right off.

then use the puller on only the counterweight. This is where it sucks, because its scary as hell when that thing flies off...

 

Well, we got it out. We rented a three-jaw puller and tried to pull it off with that and still would not come off. Then, we got a blowtorch and heated up the counterweight for about 5-6 minutes. Put the puller back on, tightened it down, and with both of us pulling on a three-foot cheater bar, it clanged off. It was amazing how much force, beating, and heat had to be applied to get that thing off.

 

Yeah, I whacked mine twice (maybe 3 times, I don't remember ) with a ~3 pound hammer, and it just about fell off.

 

it was my car that we were working on and trust me Kenteth we tried for over 4 hrs to get that damn counterweight off. we first got a puller that we bolted to the flexplate and all that did was just bend the flexplate. we went back to autozone and rented the 2 jaw puller they have and used that right on the counterweight. both me and acidshock were using a 3 foot breaker bar to tighten the puller after my impact gun wouldnt turn it any further. once we had about 350ft/lbs on the bolt we heated it up with the torch for about 15 minutes and we were also beating on it with a hammer, and the counterweight still wouldnt budge. i said that its never going to come off and we should give up, i took the impact gun to loosen the bolt on the puller and the next thing we know the puller is laying on the ground and both of us wondering what the heck just broke. it turns out that the counterweight finaly shot off and threw the puller off of it, we were luck it didnt hit us, that would have nearly killed us.

 

scary **** aint it?