Quote:
Originally Posted by Whocares05050
Dont think so. I had to use the breaker bar method FYI after 7 differant air guns, and 2 differant tanks of air couldnt get it off.
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I've never used the term "FTW" before but the starter trick is
FTW!!! Throw some MF's or whatever in there if you'd like
I knew the crank pulley bolt removal could be my sticking point so I hit it up with liquid wrench (which I didn't think would matter since the car is less than 6 months old and I live in the desert, so no rust, but why not try?) and boosted my regulator to match the 155 PSI shut off of my compressor which has something like a 20 gallon tank and used the heavy chrome-vanadium compressor sockets and no extension to deliver maximum impact to the bolt and even tried the good ol' "tighten then loosen" trick all to no avail. By the way, the air wrench I've got it rated to 90 PSI so I wore a face shield to give me some sort of protection if the thing blew up in my face under 155 PSI.
From there I figured I'd give the starter trick a try and braced a breaker bar against the suspension between it and the steering linkage. All I did was blip the starter as quickly as I could and then hit the bolt with my air wrench and it spun right off! This beats my back up plan of going on base to the auto hobby shop and borrowing their BFW.
From there I pulled the cross member and the belt (which is seriously easy with the tensioner pulley vs. previous Hondas I've worked on). The alternator wasn't that bad once I got past the idea of actually removing it from the engine bay (how the heck does one actually get the alternator ALL of the way out if needed?). I had to use an offset 7/8" wrench (I know 22MM is the right size but I had this offset lying around from an alternator pulley installation YEARS ago and it does the job). Putting on the alternator pulley was a different story since that bad boy is tiny and my offset wrench couldn't get inside so I had to find a somewhat safe spot to insert a screwdriver to stop alternator rotation and then carefully applied the necessary torque (do this at your own risk and don't complain to mom if you gouge the winding or any other sensitive part inside your alternator).
Now the fun part. I though this wasn't bad at all until I decided it was time to put the idler pulley on. How hard can it be? Heck, only three steps to remove and replace according to my service manual. WRONG!!! My Ingalls "Stiffy" bracket was interfering. So I spent the next 30 minutes pulling the damper off, removing the bracket, grinding the bracket with my "going to die any day" Dremel and a file and refitting it a few times to check clearance. Alright, all is well. I should be
'ing in less than an hour! WRONG AGAIN!!! The lower Stiffy bracket bolt corner was cutting in to the belt. Remove idler pulley, remove bolt, grind bolt, reinstall bolt and pulley. NOW I can finally put everything back together.
All in all it probably took me 4 hours from getting started through a test run. My guess is that I can get that down to 2 hours with the help of a friend and knowing a little bit more about how to do it, namely working the clearance issues up front.
It was late when I got done last night so I didn't have a chance to drive it until this morning and my short commute doesn't give me much chance to
but I can say that they look nice (all you can really see is the idler) and I never saw voltage drop below 14.0 via my ScanGauge on the drive this morning.