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I'm having trouble getting the crank pulley off of the BJ engine because it's just sitting on the ground in a tire. I've called all over and no one carries heavy duty chain wrenches around her. I also can't find a good strap wrench either. What should I do? I'm at my wits end here. I need to get my car up and running ASAP. TIA

Impact wrench.

Don't have one....

The factory uses a special tool to catch a tooth on the flywheel, while the other portion hooks to the bell housing opening or something. You might be able to rig something up.

If the flywheel is off, all bets are off, and you either need a strap/chain wrench, or impact wrench.

There's a hole in the side of the block that you can slip a flathead scewdriver into to lock the flywheel. If it is an auto, removed the plastic cover and go in from the front and lock it that way. Then get a real long breaker, like 3 ft. and it should come off...

Get a heavy-duty strap wrench. I got one from Ace hardware with a big aluminum handle that works great. The small cheap ones with the plastic handles can't hold up to the torque, as I mangled one in about two seconds. A chain wrench will hold but gauge the pully.

Bolt the flywheel portion to something solid. Find a spot to put something through the flywheel and have it locked from turning that way.

Stopping the flywheel from spinning is the key.

HA HA, ya, bolt it to a workbench or somethin.

That bolt is on at @ 200+ ft lbs. When its still in the car, I use a 3ft breaker bar, and my body weight, which is about 220.

Or, I rest the breaker bar on the drivers side frame rail, and breifly crank the starter

I think your kinda screwed personally.

bolt the flywheel to something heavy eh? Like a transmission Then bolt the transmission to the car.

Seriously though those are all good suggestions.

Can you bolt the starter on without having a transmission attached? Shiva did that with his 2JZ to get the crank pulley off. The motor was on a tire so he had a friend sit on it to hold it down.

You could reattach the cam sprockets enough to hold them and brace steel angle iron across them (attaching them with U-bolts) and bolt into the holes in the crank pulley by tapping them (I forget what to tap them, but they're perfectly predrilled for some SAE size). If I had known I could've shipped you my fixture when I sent the sprocket. My fixture looks something like this: The dots in the middle would be the bolts that go to the crank pulley

U===..===U

I think my fixture cost about $30 to make from Home Depot.

Steve

Thanks for all the ideas guys. I'm at my wits end here. I'm going to give it one last valiant effort and if I can't get it off then I might give up on this whole thing.

I did go out and look for a heavy duty strap wrench but came up empty.
I'll need one to get the cam sprocket off too so I'm getting pissed.

This sounds promising Matt. Where exactly is this hole?

Matt Monson wrote:There's a hole in the side of the block that you can slip a flathead scewdriver into to lock the flywheel. If it is an auto, removed the plastic cover and go in from the front and lock it that way. Then get a real long breaker, like 3 ft. and it should come off...

Steve- I don't have an OEM crank pulley on the engine. It's a Go Fast Bits Underdriven lightweight pulley so that wouldn't have helped anyways but thanks.

Vikash- I don't understand how the starter would sieze the flywheel. Even with the starter attached the engine can still turn can't it?

The starter wouldn't stop the flywheel. You'd stick a wrench/breaker-bar on the crankshaft pulley nut, brace it against the ground, and use the starter to turn the crankshaft, breaking the bolt loose.

Oohhh, I see. Hmm, interesting.

Would it be an option to do the sprocket swap after putting the motor in the car, rather than before?

I'll vouch for the starter method, effortless. If that wont work, try clamping the flywheel to something solid to secure the crank.

Matt Monson wrote:There's a hole in the side of the block that you can slip a flathead scewdriver into to lock the flywheel. If it is an auto, removed the plastic cover and go in from the front and lock it that way. Then get a real long breaker, like 3 ft. and it should come off...

It's called a bf screwdriver. I thought ahead and removed my perrin pulley before pulling the engine thank god.

chain wrench around the crank pulley, orient it so that the handle wedges itself against something so you don't have to use all your strength to keep it from turning...

Cut a piece of old fanbelt to just smaller than the circumference of the pulley, and wrap that around the pulley 1st

I've done this many many times and this has never failed

Ya, I used a chain wrench when I did my timing belt the last time but the wrench wasn't mine and I can't find one now.

hmm.... not sure what else you have laying around...

idea: using 2 flywheel bolts threaded into the back of the motor, you could either use a piece of flat metal with 2 corresponding holes in it to bolt onto the back of the crank... or you could wedge a prybar between the two bolts.... not sure if that makes sense to you or not (kinda hard to describe)... but that should allow you to hold the crank still while another person wails on the crank pulley bolt

You DO NOT want to wedge something between two flywheel bolts. Trust me on this! I was lucky not to have to retap the hole.

Steve

AND THE WINNER IS.....

MR. MONSON!!!

I got the crank pulley of lickety split, no problemo, easy as pie.....but then I found a new problem. The timing marks on the cam's are waaaay off. At least as far as I know they are. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but the mark on the crank sprocket is supposed to line up with the small lines on the outside of the cam sprockets, which line up with the lines in the timing belt cover's rear plate, correct? So that all 3 marks are pointing straight up, ya? Well the cam sprockets are both lined up with the arrows pointing straight up instead of the small lines, when the crank mark is pointing up the way it should. WTF? The cam sprockets are keyed so the timing has got to be off doesn't it? You can't have the arrows pointing up and still have correct timing right? I'm totally confused here because 1. When I did my timing belt all the little lines pointed up and not the arrows and 2. It doesn't look like the belt slipped or anything, both cam sprockets were the same and Phil and Vikash both rode in the BJ Legacy and it ran good. So again, WTF?

Any idea?

I was thinking about this and I think the engine pulled timing. Vikash did a compression test back before we pulled the engine and it was low across the board but even. We attributed this to the fact that the engine had sat for about a year without running so there wasn't really any oil in the cylinders. We thought that could explain the low compression but now I'm think it was always because the timing is off.

So, does anyone have an easier method for correcting the timing then pulling the valve covers and resetting the cams? And is there anything I should be worried about and/or check for?

Wow, this is a roller coaster! Haha

Hm.

What are the chances of the cam timing being off by the same amount on both sides though?

You're R&R'ing the timing belt anyway, right, to change the sprocket? Doesn't that make this a non-issue, since you just have to reinstall the belt with the correct spacing anyway? Or am I misunderstanding this?

Well, I don't know. It's hard to be exactly sure which direction the timing is off. I also don't know if it's normal for both cams to be off the same amount or not. I've never dealt with this before. Since the cam sprockets are keyed the timing has got to be off though, right? I'd hate to just guess, put it on the mark on both cams, put it all back together and have it be off.