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hey guys, i need some help.
i'm in the process of finally doing my water pump & timing belt and i can't seem to get the crank pulley off, so i was going to post some pictures to see if you guys think i need to take off the huge bolt or if i just need a pulley puller.
i don't have the space to get that bolt off, i don't think, but would really rather avoid it if i can.
anyways, just wanted to see if someone did it before and might know if i need to remove the huge bolt.

not sure if it helps, but i think it's a JDM BP-T GTX engine





i reallllllly hope i don't need to undo the big bolt

thanks in advance!

Just did mine and it was a pain in the a--. I had to unbolt the motor mount lower the engine and remove the wheel. Then I had to rent a high powered impact driver to get the bolt off.

youll need an impact for sure... plus a puller...

and youll have to take down the engine to have enough space...

but why do you have to take it out?

Not sure if you can do this with a 4cyl but you can use the motor itself to break the 6cyl loose. Just put a breaker bar on the pulley bolt and tap the starter

johnmx3ze wrote:youll need an impact for sure... plus a puller...

and youll have to take down the engine to have enough space...

but why do you have to take it out?

i need to take it out to gain access to the timing belt thingy

Sleeper6 wrote:Not sure if you can do this with a 4cyl but you can use the motor itself to break the 6cyl loose. Just put a breaker bar on the pulley bolt and tap the starter

yeah, that's what the guys over at CP said too, so i guess that's my only option.

thanks for all the advice guys, appreciate it

Once you get the crank bolt out, you can usually persuade it off without a puller, just tap it gently around the circumference while pulling on it, it'll come eventually.

I also second the starter trick, has worked for me a bunch of times.

so i didn't get it with the starter trick so i went across town to get my uncle's compressor and impact gun and the sucker still didn't budge at all.
so i was wondering what the 4 bolts were for and assume maybe i don't need to take the bolt out and used the pulley puller and the harmonic balancer came off but there was a plate behind it which is in front of the timing belt so i assume i have to take off to gain access to the t-belt.

So if the impact won't work and the starter won't work, wth do i do? i figure i have no choice and will probably keep going at it with the impact, maybe the shock will take it off eventually.

Ok I haven't worked on the 4 cyl but if you can get a socket and power bar on it, have someone exert force to pre load the bar then strike it with a short handled sledge hammer that should shock the bolt loose. Have the person wear gloves as striking the power bar can send a shock to the person applying pressure on the bar. Even though the threads are about 2" in apply penetrant to the bolt head as the resistance of the bolt head itself against the pulley can be working against you as well.

Yea that bolt its a b*tch I have a BP but the motor's out and just changed it its torqued to like 120 ft. lbs I used a breaker bar and held the flywheel with a prybar and it worked but saw some people using the starter trick... you can look on you tube timing belt replacement videos (same process as Miata, few good vids posted) and see how people do it or do a search on Club Protege maybe theres another trick.

Daninski wrote:Ok I haven't worked on the 4 cyl but if you can get a socket and power bar on it, have someone exert force to pre load the bar then strike it with a short handled sledge hammer that should shock the bolt loose. Have the person wear gloves as striking the power bar can send a shock to the person applying pressure on the bar. Even though the threads are about 2" in apply penetrant to the bolt head as the resistance of the bolt head itself against the pulley can be working against you as well.

power bar?


lol jk, i'll try that, thanks

Jovian2k wrote:Yea that bolt its a b*tch I have a BP but the motor's out and just changed it its torqued to like 120 ft. lbs I used a breaker bar and held the flywheel with a prybar and it worked but saw some people using the starter trick... you can look on you tube timing belt replacement videos (same process as Miata, few good vids posted) and see how people do it or do a search on Club Protege maybe theres another trick.

their all telling me to do the starter trick too, i think i just don't have a solid enough ground for it to work because i parked it over snow.

Evo: your best bet is the impact wrench.
Like jovian said, the bolt is torqued at the factory at 120 ft/Lbs. Add to that almost 20 years of rust, and it's gonna be an uber b!tch to take off. Put a generous amount of PB Blaster on it, and keep spraying it every few minutes for a couple of hours, and then attack it with the impact. It will get out eventually.

As some extra bad news, if the bolt is stuck that hard, chances are the pulley will be too, and you probably won't be able to get it off without a puller.
If that's the case, I had great results with with a cheap, HF puller set, SKU 37824, so you don't need to go spend a ton of money on one.

Dude, you don't put the breaker bar against the ground, you set it up so it hits the control arm/subframe. Remember it will spin CW. You need it to jar against something solid, no wonder it didn't work if you tried to do it against the snow.

Inodoro Pereyra wrote:Evo: your best bet is the impact wrench.
Like jovian said, the bolt is torqued at the factory at 120 ft/Lbs. Add to that almost 20 years of rust, and it's gonna be an uber b!tch to take off. Put a generous amount of PB Blaster on it, and keep spraying it every few minutes for a couple of hours, and then attack it with the impact. It will get out eventually.

As some extra bad news, if the bolt is stuck that hard, chances are the pulley will be too, and you probably won't be able to get it off without a puller.
If that's the case, I had great results with with a cheap, HF puller set, SKU 37824, so you don't need to go spend a ton of money on one.

yeah your right, it was hard enough to get the H-balancer off with the puller, now i have to get that 21mm bolt out to get the plate that's blocking my entry to the t-belt. (not sure what it's called, the one behind the H-balancer XD)
luckily i picked up a cheap...ish one at princess auto so i won't need to worry about that.

Ryan wrote:Dude, you don't put the breaker bar against the ground, you set it up so it hits the control arm/subframe. Remember it will spin CW. You need it to jar against something solid, no wonder it didn't work if you tried to do it against the snow.

yeah, for some reason my thought process didn't go that far as to use the LCA, on the other hand i did use a piece of 2x4 and not just against the snow, i just forgot to say it.
but i guess that 2x4 was on top of snow so.....
but either way it seems useless as my battery is dead and might need replacing, so it was basically running off my booster and on top of that i got and used an impact gun and that seems to have done nothing.
so i'm just gonna jizz pb buster all over its face and hope it'll jerk off with the impact gun after that

Well worst case you can always try applying heat to the bolt and letting it sit and cool to give yourself some extra help. The only word of caution is that you have an oil seal nearby so dont go crazy with the heat.