Is there any preferred method of positively locking an engine from turning in a stick car from the flywheel area (trans installed)?

You don't even want to know why I need to know this....but it's not good.


PS: it need to be able to take a lot of torque.

 

One trick if you're trying to do something like remove the harmonic dampner is to put a good screwdriver through one of the holes in it and against something solid/metal on the engine.

Not sure if it'll hold for what you're wanting to do though.

 

There are usually extra holes in the flywheel and I have stuck a screwdriver through one of the holes to hold it. Something tells me the screwdriver that's used may not be big enough to hold it for what you're doing, though..

ks

 

Remove a spark plug and feed ~3' of 1/2" rope into the cylinder, (on the compression stroke) then turn the engine over until the rope is compressed against the combustion chamber.

This will lock the assembly in place in either direction.

What did you do?

 

Have the tires on the ground and put the car in 5th gear.Believe me its going to take alot to make that car to move more than you will ever have

 

The rope thingy is pretty interesting, but the heads are off the motor.

Tried 5th gear....doesn't do it. Too much flex. I think the clutch is starting to really not like that.

My first mistake was waking up yesterday and everything got far worse from there.

 

What did you do ?

 

It would really help if I new what you was doing! But if you was trying to romove the clutch or flywheel this will work just get a half inch breaker bar

 

Nah that can't be it because he said the transmission is still on...

A trick I was told when doing a clutch to keep the flywheel from spinning is to loosely bolt the pressure plate to the flywheel, like hanging down, so that it presses up against the trans tunnel and prevents the engine from turning...not an option here though I guess.

Since you said flywheel I'm assuming manual, take the 1/2 hour to drop the trans and do it that way as a last resort...

 

Ok, it's not a pretty story, but if you must know, read on.....

Yesterday actually started quite well. My heads aren't in yet so al I needed to do was put the front end of the motor back together (changed the cam last week) and I was done for the day. Just simple stuff, or so I thought. Got the timing gears and front cover on, no problems, as usual. Then on to the balancer.....this is when things get bad.

So I go to install my shiny new Romac balancer and as luck would have it, it's not going on so easy. So I take the advice of the interweb and throw the bitch in the oven for awhile. It goes on about a half inch and I figure that's good enough to start drawing it in with my homemade 'balancer installer tool'. Even that is working fine but by the time it gets to the keyway, it's off just *a little* bit and there is no sense in even trying to go further. I repeat this process a few times and every time it's just a hair off. So I pull it back off and reheat it. This time it slides on right up to the keyway about where it left off before with the tool. Perfect, I think since that seems to solve the issue of it lining up at least. I put the tool back on and am easily able to start drawing it on *by hand* just by turning the tool. When it gets a little tighter, I switch to a dinky little 3/8 ratchet and easily draw it the rest of the way onto the keyway with one hand. Bolt tightens and I torque it to spec (car in fifth).

There is much rejoicing.

Install water pump....good. Install crank pulley.....good. Install water pump pulley......bad.

Pulleys aren't even close to lining up and it becomes evident that the balancer is not in all the way or something. Take pulleys back off and scratch head for awhile.

Decide the best thing to do at this point is to take the balancer back off and examine it. Go to remove the bolt (that I just hand tightened 20 minutes prior) and it aint' budging. So I try the impact.....nothing. Turn impact "up" to highest setting........nothing. More air pressure.......nothing. Bottom out regulator in frustration (137psi).....nothing.

Now I'm getting pissed.

Try a long ass 1/2 ratchet again and although under heavy driveline resistance, it turns the motor about a third of the way around, but the bolt does not move.

Really pissed now.

Figuring the impact must be on it's way out (10 year old Blue Point ~350 ft lb), I go to Sears right before closing and lay down almost $300 for a new Ingersol Rand titanium somethhing or other that's rated at 1000ft lbs in reverse....the highest one they sell. This has GOT to do it. But sadly, that's not the case. After a while, it does manage to move the bolt about 1/4 turn in each direction, but no further and I also make the accidental discovery that somehow the bolt isn't even in all the way because the washer is slightly loose inside the balancer housing and then the reality sinks in of what this all probably means even though it doesn't seem possible since it went in so damn easy.

The anger is overcoming at this point. Things are thrown, hit, and kicked. Car gains it's first dent as a result (thank God for paintless dent removal) and I start to ponder anger management.

Lights off, compressor off, radio off.

Off to the bar.


So there is my sorry tale. I've been officially burned by one of the simplest procedures on a car that I've done dozens of times before without even thinking about it. The day in general cost me a small fortune and will likely get far worse before it's all said and done.

 

I'm guessing when it losts its heat, it shrunk just a little or something.

Tried using heat (carefully of course)?

Heat it was what turned a 4 hour job (removing driveshift :tard: ) into a 20 minute job for me back when I was pulling the drivetrain for the first time

 

I know you said it went on by hand so I guess you couldn't have crossthreaded the crank bolt, right?

 

Yeah, but one problem with that is I don't have acetelyne and the propane torch won't get anything hot fast enough to do any real good because it soaks into the surrounding part(s).

 

I use a little handheld torch on most of my stuff. Maybe your situation is a little more complicated, but hopefully it will be resolved without any injury to anyone or damage to an expensive/nice dampner

 

spray that bitch with pb blaster and let it sit for a day.

 

Lightly tap the balancer. If you are running a windsor you might need the spacer. Well back to your problem. Put alittle wd-40 on it and try to use a puller to push the balancer towards the bolt. This might put enough pressure on it to get that bolt off. Use heat if not helping. Take motor out of car and take to the local machine shop.

 

That's what I keep telling myself because it's gotta take some serious resistance to cross a 1/2" bolt, especially when starting it a few turns by hand, lol.

But somehow, someway, it appears that the threads got fizz-ucked.

One person I talked to seems to think that using the bolt to draw in the balancer could 'shift' threads in a cast crank, but it's still weird because it seemed to draw in pretty easy, even with the ratchet.

It's amazing that I've heard of people slamming balancer on with impacts and not having a problem, yet I try to do it in what I feel is more or less 'the right way' and I end up with this. :shrug:

 

Sorry man but that crank will need to come out.

You are Galled

 

I'd be willing to bet the bolt bottomed out in the last few tapped threads in the front of the crank and galled. Either the bolt is too long (unlikely if you are using the same as before), or the counter-bore and spot-face on the ID of the new balancer was made too deep.