Hey guys, I have a reman in my GTUs and the front main seal is leaking real bad. I can't get the 19mm bolt out at all. I rocked on it with an 18v snap on 1/2" impact and after that didn't work, I tried resting a breaker bar on the frame rail and turning the engine over to no avail. It would just stop the starter.

Before I put heat on it, I just wanted to see if any of you have had one this hard to get out. I did the front main on my turbo car and it was a piece of cake.
Also, should I be careful about putting heat on it? I was going to slowly heat it up with mapp gas and the hit it with the cordless impact.

Thanks!

 

This! ^_^ Yea you shouldn't heat it up very long, but with MAPP maybe 5-10 seconds should work? I think I usually do 10-15 with Propane.

 

I think I've made a manual impact to do it before, putting a ratchet on it and smacking the handle hard with a hammer. The trick being to use the motor's moment of inertia to your advantage.

Don't send it into your radiator, and don't say I didn't warn you.

 

I'll take a picture of the tool I made with welding a 1x1 pipe to a crank pulley. Works perfect if the engine is not in the car. If it is still in the car use the starter to break it lose.

 

Yea most impact guns wont take it off. Mine didnt. I got mine off with a 6 sided 19mm socket with a Long throw handle and my full body weight. But I had to heat it up real hot with propane torch, if you dont get it hot the Locktite that is mostlikely on it, or on most of those bolts wont let loose

 

I tried everything too but what SpeedOfLife recommended worked "I think I've made a manual impact to do it before, putting a ratchet on it and smacking the handle hard with a hammer". That freed it enough to break it free so that it would loosen.

 

little advice here. if you arent breaking tools trying to get it off, then you arent trying hard enough.

 

you need a real impact not a electric or cordless junk it will either come out or strip

 

I should ad that i had to get an Impact 19mm socket. and long wrench. because i did break tools on that eshaft bolt. Two sockets and two wrenches.,


However if the engine is in the car it makes it a bit tricky. Because Unless you can stick somthing in the flywheel its hard to keep the engine from turning. Even if its in gear the car will want to move. and its hard to get real power on that bolt

 

heat

on many engines i have to heat up the bolt flange for several minutes with MAP gas, when that doesn't work after a few attempts i have to break out the oxy acetylene torch and heat it up until the bolt is nearly glowing. if you have to heat it up this much, replace the thermal pellet because it will likely have been damaged.

the bolt tends to tighten itself over time, this is common and you can't be a pansy about how much torque and heat you apply in many cases.

 

If the engine is in.the car you use the starter to break it loose...

 

he mentioned trying that. the only alternative is to get a long breaker bar and apply a bit of heat to the bolt along with placing the transmission in 4th gear and chocking the wheels.

if that all fails then you need to remove the radiator and get a BIG impact gun and a good air compressor, or yank the engine and take it to a shop with decent tools at which point you may as well reseal the pan and rear main.

 

This. To get mine off (engine out of the car) I had to use propane for what felt like 10 minutes and then wail on it with the impact gun.

 

Oh, I didn't read that part, But I'll take a picture of the tool I made. If you have spare front crank pulleys, and a welder this tool will help you out. Hold prease. ^^Faberio, sometimes heat just doesn't do it. Locktite is no mans friend.

 

it has definitely doesn't hurt. in some cases heat is about the only thing you can do rather than spend a day making a special tool that may still wind up breaking.

i have a few broken, bent, twisted, mangled, eaten up and spat out breaker bars from that stupid bolt. torch and 1/2" MAC impact with 140psi of line pressure has yet to fail, in some cases the oil was starting to cook and the thermal pellet basically fell apart upon removal.

 

This helped so much, as I used all 4 bolts to hold it in place. The bar is suppose to be on the bottom side of the pulley (oops), but it worked out well since it did what it should have done (which was hold the crank from moving) But I'm sure if you have access to a lift, you can put that on and use a breaker bar from underneath the car.

 

Dang guys, I didn't think everyone really had this much trouble with that bolt. On my 91' Turbo the bolt had a locking ring, and after taking the ring off I got it out with the fully charged 1/2" snap on impact on the first try.

The engine currently is in the car and is a Mazda Reman with about 16k on it. On tuesday I'm going to use Mapp gas and the fully charged impact, if that doesn't work i'm going to use heat and the breaker bar method. If that doesn't work, the rad is coming out and it's going to be a Snap On air impact w/ heat.

I do have two more questions after all you comments.
Karack mentioned replaced the thermal pellet. Is that still necessary to do if I'm going to shim it open?
Also, Should I get a new bolt? When I did the crank bolt on my Audi I had to replace the crank bolt. But the torque on that thing was 300Ft/lbs plus a 1/4 turn.

 

Id use an aftermarket oil thermo pellet.

 

Or throw some washers on the stock thingy.
http://fc3spro.com/TECH/HOWTO/OTB/otb.html

 

i've never seen a front hub bolt fail even after heating them up extremely. the bolt is already overkill for what it needs to do.