HELP! Crankshaft Pulley Bolt Removal

M

MarcusAurelius

New member
Well I started the 90K maintenance on my 2003 V8 4runner today and everything went relatively smoothly until we hit the crankshaft pulley for the timing belt. We've tried everything to break it free but literally nothing would work. I've hit it with PB blaster, put a breakerbar with steel extension while we even tried to put vice grips (with padding) on the timing belt in addition to a second breaker bar keeping another pulley in place. Even with that all in place, the timing belt was skipping teeth and felt like it was stretching under the massive amount of force being put into the crankshaft.

I started this project with another T4R member at 9:00 this morning and I just now gave up for today. We will hit it again tomorrow and seriously need advice. We even bought a shorter deep impact gun solely for this bolt and will probably need to pull the radiator just to get it inside.

I've seen some people say to wedge the breaker bar and turn the engine but I'm extremely paranoid in doing so and don't want to destroy the engine. Currently the engine is drained of all coolant and oil (we followed blackworksinc's write up here: http://www.toyota-4runner.org/4th-gen-t4rs/130732-2uz-fe-r-r-t-belt-water-pump.html )

Please help!! Any advice is greatly appreciated! I'm stressed out and would really like to be back on the road to get to work on Monday. :(
 
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What I tend to do in these cases is to find a place to jam a giant bolt in the crank pulley or flexplate and use that to hold it in place (lacking a proper flywheel holder SST.) The problem is that its not that easy to do on this vehicle and its a sort of "go by the feel" thing to prevent damaging the pulley/flexplate.

Unfortunately you're best bet will probably be pulling the radiator to hit it with an impact gun, which is an extra step that isn't really needed normally... but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get the job done. :(
 
Thank you guys for the reply, I will pull the radiator and hope to God that the impact driver can break the bolt. Is there any real reason why an impact driver can normally break the bolt but a breaker bar with steel extender has such difficulty? Since the timing belt began to skip teeth, is there any potential damage that can come about from putting an impact driver on the bolt?

I'll keep you guys updated. I really hope this works, I really don't want another day like today :sad:
 
MarcusAurelius said:
Thank you guys for the reply, I will pull the radiator and hope to God that the impact driver can break the bolt. Is there any real reason why an impact driver can normally break the bolt but a breaker bar with steel extender has such difficulty? Since the timing belt began to skip teeth, is there any potential damage that can come about from putting an impact driver on the bolt?

I'll keep you guys updated. I really hope this works, I really don't want another day like today :sad:
Click to expand...

The simplest way I can describe an impact gun is basically you sticking a breaker bar on the socket and whacking it with a hammer. Except with a lot more force, better distributed, and faster.

Sometimes that "whacking" force is enough to shock the rust, debris, adhesion that's formed on the bolt and making it stick versus slow, steadily applied leverage. The other benefit is that since the impact gun distributes the force a bit better than whacking on the end of a breaker bar and much faster than you could possibly do it by hand it doesn't turn the crank as much as it would if you were just leaning into a breaker bar.

I wouldn't be too worried about using an impact on it to pop the bolt off, as the impact won't rotate the engine as much as you already have been (assuming the bolt isn't fused on...) Another thing I would do is quickly zap the bolt tighter then zap it off with the gun, that can help shock the bolt loose a bit better.

The issue at hand is are you sure it skipped a few teeth on the belt? If so you NEED to make sure you properly retime the engine when you install the new belt, which is a bit more work but essential in preventing engine damage.

When retiming the engine, DO NOT force the cam or crankshaft if it won't spin into the spot. For example, you can't get the camshaft to get to the TDC mark, don't force it! Instead, back off a hair and slowly turn the crank about a quarter or half a revolution or more if you can and then try to rotate the cam. You don't want to bend the valves by accident. You'll need to get a feel for the difference between cylinder compression providing resistance and there being a physical interference making it impossible to turn.

The above paragraph applies only if you have inadvertently skipped teeth on the timing belt and the engine has become out of time, under normal circumstance you could just rotate the crank with the belt attached and that will bring you close enough to the marks to just lightly tweak them.
 
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I figured that was why the impact driver worked, I actually hit the steel extender with a 5lb sledge for a good portion to try to mimic the impact, but still nothing. Before I tried to take off the bolt, I lined up the white circle with the white line on the crankshaft and the red on both of the top pulleys. (They were off slightly, stretched belt?) When I started applying pressure the first time, I heard a loud crack (I thought initially the bolt broke), but then realized the red on the pulleys was now further away when the white dot was aligned on the crankshaft.

When/if the crankshaft can be taken off, will I be able to just turn the top pulleys to their original position when I put the new timing belt back on? The red on the top pulley is only about an inch or so off from it's original point.

Also, the new OEM timing belt that I received has arrows on it, I just wanted to confirm that the arrows will be facing out towards the front of the car, correct?

BlackWorksInc said:
The simplest way I can describe an impact gun is basically you sticking a breaker bar on the socket and whacking it with a hammer. Except with a lot more force, better distributed, and faster.

Sometimes that "whacking" force is enough to shock the rust, debris, adhesion that's formed on the bolt and making it stick versus slow, steadily applied leverage. The other benefit is that since the impact gun distributes the force a bit better than whacking on the end of a breaker bar and much faster than you could possibly do it by hand it doesn't turn the crank as much as it would if you were just leaning into a breaker bar.

I wouldn't be too worried about using an impact on it to pop the bolt off, as the impact won't rotate the engine as much as you already have been (assuming the bolt isn't fused on...) Another thing I would do is quickly zap the bolt tighter then zap it off with the gun, that can help shock the bolt loose a bit better.

The issue at hand is are you sure it skipped a few teeth on the belt? If so you NEED to make sure you properly retime the engine when you install the new belt, which is a bit more work but essential in preventing engine damage.

When retiming the engine, DO NOT force the cam or crankshaft if it won't spin into the spot. For example, you can't get the camshaft to get to the TDC mark, don't force it! Instead, back off a hair and slowly turn the crank about a quarter or half a revolution or more if you can and then try to rotate the cam. You don't want to bend the valves by accident. You'll need to get a feel for the difference between cylinder compression providing resistance and there being a physical interference making it impossible to turn.

The above paragraph applies only if you have inadvertently skipped teeth on the timing belt and the engine has become out of time, under normal circumstance you could just rotate the crank with the belt attached and that will bring you close enough to the marks to just lightly tweak them.
Click to expand...
 
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You should be able to get it back to where it needs to be without turning the engine over too much. Do you remember where that loud crack came from?
 
BlackWorksInc said:
You should be able to get it back to where it needs to be without turning the engine over too much. Do you remember where that loud crack came from?
Click to expand...

I'm the other member helping Mark.....

Initially I was holding the drivers side camshaft bolt with a breaker bar to keep the engine from turning while Mark tried to get the crank bolt to break... The crack came from the cam pully I was holding.... We retimed the engine back to the original marks and everything timed except the cam I had been holding which was 1 tooth off..... Belt looked ok othewise so looked like we didn't strip any teeth and it just jumped..... Tried again with vicegrips holding the belt on the pully (with padding to protect the belt) and this time heard another crack..... Another tooth skipped but this time it was on the crank.... This is where we decided we were doing more damage than good and went to buy the smallest impact driver we could find with a plan to hit it again in the morning......
 
So we pulled the radiator, hit it with our new 600ft lb air compressed impact gun. Nothing. We hit it back and forth in hopes of breaking it, and douse the thing in PB blaster on regular intervals. The only thing that it's doing it grinding down the nut (silver filings in the PB blaster). Any last ditch efforts left? We've been at it for about 2 hours this morning and nothing...

Pretty much at the end of the rope with currently the prettiest 2 ton paper weight I've ever seen....
 
MarcusAurelius said:
I've seen some people say to wedge the breaker bar and turn the engine but I'm extremely paranoid in doing so and don't want to destroy the engine. (
Click to expand...

I would try this...its not going to destroy your engine. If its timed properly and the belt is intact.

EDIT: If the doesn't work or maybe try this first before the head of the bolt gets rounded...get it red hot with an oxy-acetylene torch then the impact gun will remove it.
 
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long extension braced against the frame on the driver's side, with a super quick starter bump worked for me. I was like you and tried an impact gun, strap wrench etc etc with no luck.
 
To the OP: buy, borrow, or make the tool to hold the crankshaft pulley. You need to be able to hold the pulley without any give whatsoever in order to "break" the bolt free. While I do not have a 4th gen. T4R, I have removed the crank pulley and changed the timing belt on my 3rd gen. 3.4L engine. I made something similar to the figure in post # 6, using drill bits inserted into the 2 holes in the pulley instead of bolts:

Homemade Crank Pulley Tool - Tacoma World Forums

Also, be sure to use the appropriate thread-locker when reinstalling the crank pulley bolt.
 
Success!....Sort of.... I was able to borrow a 900ft lb impact driver and it was just barely enough to get it off. We've realigned the pulleys but ran into another issue. I'm not sure what the name of the part is, but the metal bracket that the top of the "grenade" tensioner attaches to the pulley was sheared off. I'm not sure if this occurred when we used the breaker bar on the crankshaft and perhaps put enough pressure on the area where the tensioner attached to snap metal?

It seems pretty hard to believe, but I don't really know how it could have happened. Currently going to the dealer to see if they have the part lying around.
 

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BlackWorksInc said:
Weird, I've had a paperclip work before in a pinch. Hmm... maybe I should change that in my write up... Sorry about that.
Click to expand...

Haha it's no problem at all, I just thought the picture was funny so thought I would add it, a small allen wrench did the trick no problem.
 
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