Just Fix It

[brett@kodak.com (Brett VanSprewenburg)]

(LONG LONG story ahead, read when you have more time...)


You've seen the sentences in the repair manuals, "Now remove the pulley." or
"Adjust the gear lash."  What can sometimes result is hours of tool 
torturing and knuckle mashing to do step 2 of a 12 step repair procedure.

Case in point:


It was a cool evening, with just a hint of menace in the air, a prediction
of things to come.  I was working on my 1985 Scirocco in the garage, my
next winter vehicle, when suddenly I decided to change my timing belt.  Now,
some of you may be thinking me quite rash, but the activity was actually
premeditated as I had previously purchased the belt in anticipation of doing
the job.  
    I removed the upper timing belt cover with nary a hitch, "Hey, this
is going to be easy!"  Knowing that I needed to change out all the belts
anyway, I loosened the adjustment bolts for the alternator and air conditioner.
Nothing would budge of course, so I also had to loosen the pivot bolts,
nothing would budge of course.  I went for a 4 foot piece of pipe and a small
hand sledge.  Ahhh, now we're getting somewhere!  After forcing the air
conditioner down enough to get the belt off the alternator, I discovered that
the belt would not slip through the area between the waterpump pully and
a/c pully.  Ok, undo undo undo, pull the a/c alternator assembly up JUST
enough. Got the belt off.  Uh oh, now the belt won't come off the a/c,
waterpump, crankshaft.  Down down down with the a/c assembly again, with
assistance from my trusty hand sledge and 4 foot cheater bar.  (The cheater
bar is a very important and reoccuring theme in this story).  Accessory
belts are off.  Next step in the repair manual (I paraphrase):
"Remove the 4 allen bolts from the crankshaft pulley. "Remove the pulley"
"Not a problem I thought, I'm sure it's a two piece unit and not one like
it looks like."  So, after applying the correct counter force with a socket
on the center crankshaft bolt, and an allen wrench (properly cheated out to
over a foot by locking a pair of vice-grips onto a long socket, then slipping
the socket over the end of the allen wrench)  Got em off.  Hmmm.  Because of
the way the pulley is located at the bottom of the engine, there's really
no good way to get good leverage, or a striking area, behind it.  Hitting
it on the just exposed edge (not really hard, just kinda testing) only
resulted in the pulley bending inward, squeezing the belt channel. Whoa, I
thought, stop right there.  Bad thing.  Ok, so now I've got to undo the
whole assembly by taking off the center bolt, which attaches to the crank.
Think about this problem for a sec...how do I keep the engine from spinning?
In gear with the wheels on the ground, nope, the engine can still be spun.
Weak ass pressure plate! What, ya only got a 150k!  Hmmm, think think think.
Ah one of my shop manuals says that to remove this bolt, you've got to jamb
the engine.  Oh joy.  I drain the oil (I was gonna do this anyway), and drop
the friggen oil pan (which I was definitely NOT going to do).  Oh what a 
damn ugly oily crappy mess.  Ok, bottom of crank exposed.  Spin engine a 
couple of times just to watch it, neato.  Show off mechanical prowess to 
wife by having her look under the car while I spin the crank with a ratchet. 
The Poor Richard book says to wedge a 2x4 in the engine against one (or more) 
of the crank shaft counter-weights.  I do this, hook up a breaker bar, slide 
on my 4 foot cheater, and apply pressure.  Wow, I've now used an engine crank 
to splinter a 2x4 into kindling.  Very esoteric way to chop wood, if you don't 
mind.  After a couple of rounds of this, punching crankshaft impressions 
into 2x4's (entertaining, but it gets old quickly)  I did spy a 10 inch steel 
punch, about 3/4 inch thick and flattened sides, in my roller cabinate.  
Evil grin and laugh time.  
I wedged the punch sideways in the bottom of engine and rotated it until 
the counter weights jambed up against it.  Now, we'll see who's boss.  I set 
up again with the ratchet and 4 foot cheater bar, and pulled.  Apparently, I 
didn't have the bar wedged in _quite_ right, because it shot out of the bottom
and gouged my cement floor pretty well.  Ok, let's try this again.  I AM THE
MAN!!  Through brute force and cunning plans, (just let me go) I removed 
the bastard thing!  Heaving with adrenaline, I go to remove the plastic
lower timing belt cover.  What's this?  A deeply recessed bolt/nut/something-
I-can't-really-see is holding the cover still.  It was covered by the crank
shaft accessory pulley, and I hadn't seen it before.  Hmmmm.  It appears to
have a recessed hole,  Allen wrench?  None fit.  Try SAE sizes.  None fit.
Try cleaning it out, maybe it's full of rust/gunk.  Repeat failed allen
wrench fitment.  Try torx, nope.  Try triple square, nope.  Ok, maybe it's
a funny looking nut.  No socket will fit into the recessed hole AND around
the edge of the bolt/nut.  Ok, time for bed.
   The next day I went straight for a hack-saw.  I cut that mother-f#JK=-8d
lower cover right around the bolt/nut/thing.  I sawed at it viscously,
because that's how I felt about it.  Satisfaction!  After making two pieces
out of my lower timing belt cover, I was able to slide a screwdriver up
under the aforementioned bolt/thing and snap the rest of the platic cover
off (kinda wish I'd thought of that FIRST).  Ok get this: The bolt/thing
is FRIGGIN ROUND! It's a rounded head, with a rounded depression in the end.
There was no way to remove it without being able to clamp a pair of vise-grips
to the side of it, kinda difficult when it's at the bottom of tiny recessed
hole that you can hardly see into.  Ok, a day plus later, done with 
Step 3: "Remove timing belt cover."  Thinking about this line makes me a 
little bit giddy.  I break apart the crank shaft belt gear from the
accessory pulley, with a hammer.  Still takes minutes.  Rust and time are
FANTASTIC welders.  I put the gear back on the end of the crank shaft, and
would you believe that I don't own a torque wrench? :-(  Just what does
143ft/lbs feel like, eh?  Of course I used my 4-foot cheater bar during
tightening; no I didn't ream the hell out of it, just pushed about as strongly
as it took to remove.  Now, after removing the cracked (and now hacksawed) timing
belt, I realize that I hadn't set the engine at TDC before I started this
mess.  Ok, we all know how to do this, so I'll skip that bit.  BUT, what I
won't skip the huge friggen hassle it is to keep those three sprockets
(lower two mainly) at TDC while sliding the belt on!  I'd just get everything
lined up, and I'd be beginning my run at the top with the cam sprocket (where
the only thing that lines up are tooth-2-tooth, not tooth-2-notch), when
"SPIN", something would move.  Here we go again.  I eventually resorted to
jambing the intermediate shaft by wedging a screwdriver behind it.  Finally,
the belt is on.  I readjust the timing with the mark on the distributor, and
then started thinking about putting the oil pan back on.  Lunch time.
   After lunch, I get out my new oil pan gasket. Oh, I forgot to mention that
I had one, didn't I?  Why do they insist upon packaging big gaskets in a
way that puts a nice crease in them?  There's no way that they'll lay flat
and still long enough for you to put pieces together.  It's criminal!  (ok,
I'm done)  Don't ask me how, but I managed to keep the gasket on the
pan long enough to get it around the oil pump and baffle and attach the pan
with a couple of bolts.  Everything was going good now (relatively speaking),
until I tried to put the bolts back in that are tucked waaay up next to the
fly wheel/tranny.  You actually cannot reach the bolt with your fingers.
It boils down to this: There was no way I could put these 2 bolts back in 
straight.  None.  I was using a 1/4 drive 10mm, with a tiny 1/4 drive 
universal and 1/4 drive extension.  No joy.  There's just not
enough room there to stand the socket/u-joint up straight to drive the bolt
into the threads.  (at least on my car).  So I'm thinking:  this is a $500
winter car, when's the inside of this oil pan going to see the light of day
again?  (Read as NEVER).   I crossthreaded em.  Yup.  Torqued em down right
smartly I did.  (I can hear the purists yelling already: Blasphemy!)
   So I finished changing the oil, (some neadathal had put on the previous
filter, so I had to punch a screwdriver in THAT to get enough torque to 
undo it) Finally, I could see if all my work was going to pay off, will 
the damn thing start?  YUP!  And, it seems to run much better then before.
Putting the rest of car back together took a couple more hours, but was
far less eventful.  Oh, nothing leaks by the way. :-)

The moral(s) of the story:  Air tools can save your life.  A 4-foot cheater bar
is your best tool.  To much caffine is a bad thing.


Let me tell ya the ignition story....some other time :-)

I realize this was quite long, but I hope some of you find it enjoyable.  I
cannot believe that I'm the only one who runs into these kinds of things.

I MIGHT consider doing this again.

==Brett
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