Hey all, first post here, seems like a great forum.

I recently bought a '91 Civic and I decided to replace the timing belt/water pump since I didn't know when the last time was this was done. Anywho, everything was going smoothly until (surprise!) we got to the point where you have to remove the crankshaft pulley bolt. Now I've done some reading up on this, and it seems like a very common issue. We don't have access to an air compressor here so an impact wrench is out of the option. We resorted to removing the bolt by hand using this method:

http://www.cadvision.com/blanchas/54pontiac/honda.html

We stuck two very strong bolts through two of the holes on the pulley and wedged a metal bar in between them so the pulley wouldn't move (see picture below, this wasn't mine, but it gives you an idea of what we did):



Then using a big breaker bar with 1/2" drivers we tried to move the bolt. It wouldn't budge, but there seemed to be a fair bit of play; after applying a LOT of force, we found out what was happening: the bolts warped and cracked the actual pulley itself!




You can imagine the amount of cursing that went on when we discovered this.



Anyway, so the upshot of all this is that I now have two problems:

1) That ****ing bolt is still not loose
2) Is the damage to the pulley itself bad enough to warrant replacement of the pulley?

Any advice would be very much appreciated here, especially on other methods of loosening that bolt. btw, I am aware of this tool but I live in Canada and shipping would probably take at least a week which I don't really have.

 

idk how you're gonna get it off without the tool, since it's already amazingly hard to get off.

but yea, i think you're gonna need to replace the pulley. The reason is, because the pulley is precisely harmonically balanced by Honda while it's made. It's probably unbalanced now because of the crack in it. An unbalanced pulley can cause damage to the crankshaft.

 

1) As Trust says, the pulley is toast. Get a new pulley or a used one from a salvage yard.

2) Removal of old pulley: Spray a good penetrating oil on the bolt from both front and rear sides of the pulley and let it soak in for a couple of hours. Continue with your current method of crank bolt extraction using two remaining undamaged holes in the pulley as well as new bolts that fit more snuggly into the holes. Place a tight fitting metal pipe over the end of your 1/2" breaker bar to increase leverage.

3) Alternative method for removal of old pulley: Tow your Civic to the air compressor and impact wrench.

4) Installation of new pulley: Purchase the recommended tool from Amazon.

 

If it's a manual, lock the engine by shifting to 4th and put a screwdriver in the slot of the brake rotor so the wheel can't turn.

An impact wrench is a so much easier way to get the bolt out.

 

what slot of the brake rotor?
i'm replacing my timing belt soon and this advice is definitely going to help. lol

 

Got up this morning and decided to try something different, we managed to brace the pulley against the floor by putting a pair of wrenches vertically holding it in place (picture below).



Unfortunately, while this worked by stopping the pulley from turning, we had to apply so much force on the breaker bar that the engine started to lift followed by the front of the car. I estimate we put at least 180-200ft/lbs on that bolt and it still hasn't budged. One thing's for sure, the last guy who changed this either used locktite or wrenched that sucker on there using a big air compressor and impact wrench.

I don't think there's any way of getting this off by hand, so we're gonna see about renting the largest electric impact wrench we can... I'll post back with the results (though any other ideas are welcome)

$450 is starting to not sound like such a bad price to get this done at the dealer!

 

what we did on my old civic was we took a metal beam from an old bedframe, and welded a bolt onto it. we stuck the bolt in the hole on the pulley, and the bar against the ground. this way we were pushing the car towards the ground instead of lifting it off the ground as you described.

 

I just done my timing belt, once you get that bolt off its all down hill from there.. putting the new timing belt on was a pain in the *** becasue it was a tight *** fit.

I would recomend getting a new timing belt tensioner as well while you are putting on the new water pump and belt..

A normal impact would'nt get my bolt out but my moms b/f has a 600f/p impact wrench spun it out like it was finger tight.. lol goodluck getting your's out man..

 

Well we finally got the damn thing off this morning using a big electric impact wrench that apparently does up to 300ft/lbs, rented from a local store. Turned it on for about 5 or 6 seconds and the screw came off like butter. I wish we had known this before we broke the pulley

Next trick will be finding a new pulley, the dealer wants $165 for one and it looks like our only other source will be at the local auto wreckers...

 

Hey all, im in the process of chainging the belt myself, and my question is:
if the crankshaft does rotate a bit during the process of removing the bolt, will i be able to index the crankshaft back to tdc? in other words, does the crankshaft sprocket have index marks on it?