Water pump & Timing belt replacement

[Frog2Spider]

Thanks RRoller,
If the impact hammer doesn't work, this sounds like the doable back-up. I'll know tomorrow!
Thanks,
Dave

[Odoyle]

I took off the crank pulley in my 83 using a large socket and breaker bar, (with radiator removed) positioning the bar on the ground, and blip the starter with the plug wires removed and it loosened the crank nut in seconds. Tightened it doing the same procedure. Kicker here is to make sure the bar is in the right position when the motor turns.

[bobplyler]

I've heard you can brace a breaker bar against the driver side fender, and hit the starter. I've never tried this.

[RRoller123]

Thanks RRoller,
If the impact hammer doesn't work, this sounds like the doable back-up. I'll know tomorrow!
Thanks,
Dave

The key is not to choose a method that relies upon the internals of the motor for either resistance or force. Personally, I would never use the Starter for force, or rely upon the Transmission/Brakes for the resistance. Keep ALL the forces external to the motor. That is what the chain wrench on the pulley does. Just my opinion, of course; lots of methods seem to work.

[Frog2Spider]

I took off the crank pulley in my 83 using a large socket and breaker bar, (with radiator removed) positioning the bar on the ground, and blip the starter with the plug wires removed and it loosened the crank nut in seconds. Tightened it doing the same procedure. Kicker here is to make sure the bar is in the right position when the motor turns.

I've read about using the starter method, but you are the first to confirm that it works. My fear would be breaking off a tooth or two on the flywheel! You are also the first to confirm using the starter to tighten the nut, which sounds even scarier!

Great to know that it worked, but hopefully I won't have to use this method, ..... but for a last resort!

Dave

[Odoyle]

Thanks RRoller,
If the impact hammer doesn't work, this sounds like the doable back-up. I'll know tomorrow!
Thanks,
Dave

The key is not to choose a method that relies upon the internals of the motor for either resistance or force. Personally, I would never use the Starter for force, or rely upon the Transmission/Brakes for the resistance. Keep ALL the forces external to the motor. That is what the chain wrench on the pulley does. Just my opinion, of course; lots of methods seem to work.

Think about what you said for a second... what is an impact wrench? An external source of power... being used to loosen a nut on a spinning crankshaft that is torqued to almost 200ft. lbs........ where as I have successfully and rather quickly completed the service by using the power for the motor, and a basic concept of leverage. And I would be damn impressed to find that a chain wrench will be able apply enough forces to hold the crank pulley till its torqued back to its original spec.

[RRoller123]

The chain wrench holds the pulley just fine. Wrap an old timing belt or other piece of hard rubber around it to keep the chain from marking the pulley.

These were my tools as used, (plus the applicable torque spec) but I did add a piece of rubber around the pulley. Old timing belt is perfect, held in place with duct tape while the chain wrench is positioned.

There is plenty of length to apply the specified torque upon reassembly, the calculation is a simple one. 181 ft-lbs over ~4 feet is easy to achieve. Black iron pipe from HD slips right over most wrenches and works really well. The key is to have the second person work the chain wrench so that the pulley moves as little as possible. One person on one side of the car, one on the other works fine.

All of this was done 6 years ago, by the way.

[Frog2Spider]

The Intersoll Rand, with a 90 degree head angle, hammer impact gun worked beautifully.
Effortlessly actually, and amazingly simple!

Thanks for all the alternatives!
Dave

[nelsonj]

I can't resist this conversation, I had to remove my nut and opted for the "rope trick" method. I don't recommend it, but it worked...this is an excerpt from my previous post in the restoration section for Bella.

Leverage was not working, and I didn't have a functional chain wrench. I decided either I would have to 1) rent an impact wrench, or 2) attempt the dreaded "rope in the cylinder" trick. After much angst, I decided to go for the rope. First, I do not recommend this trick. If you do it wrong, you will bend your valves, and I just got done replacing the head because I bent all the valves... but here is what I did.

How To Remove your Crank Nut with the Rope in the Cylinder Trick.

1) Make sure your timing belt is on.
2) Rotate the crank so the crank timing mark is at 0 deg BTDC and the intake and exhaust cams are on their timing marks
3) Remove your distributor cap and make sure the rotor is pointing near/contacting cylinder plug #4
4) Ok, as I understand this, the engine is now set up so that #4 just finished compression and is waiting for a spark. It will then continue down in the power stroke. Thus, the full time during the up compression stroke and the full time in the down power stroke, the valves are completely closed. Thus it should be safe to do the rope trick on #4.
5) Remove your spark plug on #4. I then put a McDonalds straw in the spark plug hole to confirm #4 is TDC. Leave the straw in for step 6.
6) Rotate your crank clockwise (when viewing the engine straight on, this is the normal direction of engine rotation) until #4 drops to bottom dead center (BDC). Watch the straw. It will drop down while you crank the engine. When it stops moving down, you are at BDC.
7) Remove the straw, and then slowly feed in thin rope into #4 through the spark plug hole. Keep feeding in the rope until you "fill" the cylinder. Just keep feeding it until it doesn't want to take anymore rope.
Now slowly rotate the engine COUNTER CLOCKWISE (the opposite direction of normal rotation). Keep an eye on the timing marks on the crank and the cams. The rope should compress and then the engine should stop. It has to stop before #4 makes its way back to TDC or you did something wrong and you need to start over.
9) Once the engine gets hard to turn COUNTER CLOCKWISE, attach your breaker bar, and continue pushing counter clockwise to remove your crank nut. Mine made a loud "SNAP" sound, and I wasn't sure if I broke a tool or if the nut came loose. Fortunately, it was just the nut breaking loose with a loud noise.

[Frog2Spider]

nelsonj

Very novel!

[QuebecFiatSpider]

Hey guys, only want to let you know that I'm in complete agreement with what RRoller123 wrote above. I just removed mine couple of weeks ago using the same technique and it worked just fine. Ho and also I still had the covers on my spider 2000 FI. I still have not decided if I'm going to place them back on...

[Gnocco]

We (two people!) used two 4 ft cheater pipes on a breaker bar and an irwin chain wrench. It wasnt easy and we broke the crank pulley even using the old belt to protect it.