GRRR Crank pulley bolts stuck bad! Help!

deftsound

Please ask me how much my supercharger cost
Apr 6, 2004
945
1
39
Texas City TX
So ive been putting on my underdrive pulleys on today and im stuck on pulling the crank pulley bolts. They are frozen solid and i just ended up rounding out one of the bolt heads. I don't know what to do and id hate to put it all back together without having installed hte pulleys.

I tryed the craftsman rounded bolt sockets and i still cant get it to budge. Anyone have a similar experience or have any insight?
 
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you may need to remove the harmonic balancer so you can get to the pulley bolts easier. once you have it on the bench you can use an easy-out. and with the hb out you can inspect it for squeeze out. you can rent a hb puller from auto zone and other places too.
 
I see you got your pulleys:nice: i usually but a breaker bar on it and rest it on the ground and crank the car... im not recommending it though.... You can probably do it with the bolt outs.

Yea i got a good deal on them through corral, hmm i think im gonna just pull the HB, i don't see any other way...how does the hb puller work?

haha wait are you the adam i bought them off of from corral?
 
What will you thread the balancer puller into if the pulley is in place?

I've had pretty good luck with the Craftsman bolt removers. I didnt even know there was room to use them though.

If you haven't, use a lot of PB Blaster on the bolts (let them sit for hours after you douche them, and keep douching them).

For the rounded one, I dunno. Worst case you might have to grind the head off......
 
I would try to heat them a bit with a torch then spray some pnetrant on it to cool it. Usually that will pull the penetrant in and break the bolt loose.

be careful with penatrant and fire.. if ya know what i mean. and righty tighty, lefty loosey

I've had success using this method on multiple occasions. It'll make a very smokey mess, but won't start a fire, as long as the bolts aren't literally glowing red. Try using a propane torch instead of butane if possible. The propane will get the bolts hotter.

Moved to 94-95 Tech.
 
Map gas is hotter than propane, but it might be a little too hot. If you have at least two oposing bolts out, you might condsider pulling the balancer off and taking it to a machine shop. That will save you a lot of suffering.

Kurt
 
Well i finally got them all. The first three i used a propane torch and heated hte crap out of them and was able to get them off. The fourth one was a HUGE pita, first of all i rounded the bolt badly and no matter how much i heated it it would NOT break loose. So finally i just broke out the dremel and cut off the head, worked like a charm!