- Mar 5, 2002
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I am trying to change my timing belt on an '85 Mustang LX (without a turbo). I can't figure out why the pulley on the front of my crankshaft won't come off. I have the bolt off, and can move backward and forward about 1.5", but it gets hung up coming forward and it won't come off.
I thought once I got the big bolt off this would be easy... no such luck. I have sprayed around where the pulley was with Liquid Wrench, hit the pulley from all directions with a rubber mallet, and pulled the pulley forward with my hands with all my strength. I'm fairly strong, and I pulled on that pulley so hard I strained an ab muscle. What's up?
If getting the pulley off is really this much work, I'd almost rather wait for the stupid timing belt to break. At least I'm pretty sure I could get the head off, which is more than I can say about the crank pulley. Does anyone even know if the 2.3L is even an interference design? Maybe I should just blow the whole belt change off.
Incidentally, I am amazed at how hard this whole process has been. The manuals I have (Haynes and Chilton) just say to pull the crank pulley off... there's no mention of how to do this. A puller tool would have helped... but none of the auto parts stores around here had one. They're too busy selling $250 Euro taillight kits to actually throw me a frickin' bone and sell some real tools, I guess. I finally just put a long breaker bar on the bolt, jammed it into the ground, and bumped the starter. That got the bolt off. But as far as I can tell, that bolt serves no purpose whatsoever. It's almost like the crank pulley is press-fit on.
PLEASE HELP!!!
I thought once I got the big bolt off this would be easy... no such luck. I have sprayed around where the pulley was with Liquid Wrench, hit the pulley from all directions with a rubber mallet, and pulled the pulley forward with my hands with all my strength. I'm fairly strong, and I pulled on that pulley so hard I strained an ab muscle. What's up?
If getting the pulley off is really this much work, I'd almost rather wait for the stupid timing belt to break. At least I'm pretty sure I could get the head off, which is more than I can say about the crank pulley. Does anyone even know if the 2.3L is even an interference design? Maybe I should just blow the whole belt change off.
Incidentally, I am amazed at how hard this whole process has been. The manuals I have (Haynes and Chilton) just say to pull the crank pulley off... there's no mention of how to do this. A puller tool would have helped... but none of the auto parts stores around here had one. They're too busy selling $250 Euro taillight kits to actually throw me a frickin' bone and sell some real tools, I guess. I finally just put a long breaker bar on the bolt, jammed it into the ground, and bumped the starter. That got the bolt off. But as far as I can tell, that bolt serves no purpose whatsoever. It's almost like the crank pulley is press-fit on.
PLEASE HELP!!!