Crankshaft center bolt removal
 

I have to get the crank bolt off of my engine. The spec is 240lb/ft and I have a feeling it is even tighter than that. I have locked it up to the frame with the breakerbar to use the starter and all I get is a snap. The starter is not strong enough to do the job. Any ideas. I have plenty of room. The engine is coming out so it is mostly disassembled.
Thanks in advance.

This along with an air impact or a 3.5 foot breakerbar.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/P1090126.jpg

I did mine by pinning the flywheel at the locking location with a punch (works great) then I took a socket and breaker bar and 3 foot pipe and got on it. I had a piece of wood at the socket to hold it from coming off and stood on the pipe and it came loose. This was a correctly torqued bolt with loctite from Metric that I had to remove when broke one of the timing chain guides with an idoit move while removing the head:frown:

John S

You just made my day. I thought I was going to have to pay another $100 for another "special tool". Punch, Breaker bar and Pipe I have.
Thank you much.

You can also find a bolt that fits the pinning location and slide that in and put a nut on the back side then tighten the nut to jam that into the flywheel locking areas. This was the best way to ensure the bolt does not pop out of the flywheel locking hole while you are chanking on front nut with the breaker bar.

Thanks for the follow-up. The deed is done and it was a piece of cake. I took a set of pictures of the procedure and will post them to the thread as soon as I can. Your advice and the pics I took are what I needed. So someone else will benefit because it looks like the process works for all of the inlines.

Has anyone done this with the special crank holding tool on an M44? I'm finding a few random references that imply the M44 (specifically) needs another adapter tool (11 2 410) in addition to the big main crank holding tool.

EDIT:
Looks like that tool is a spacer used on the M41, M44 and M52 engines.
http://tis.spaghetticoder.org/s/view.pl?1/06/41/46

For reference/archive purposes.
The main tool was part number 88 88 6 11 2 150. Now#83 30 0 490 841.
The spacer tool was part number 90 88 6 11 2 410. Now#83 30 0 490 884.

Husker BMW has the main tool for $91 and the spacer for $31.

SIR Tools has a replacement for the actual BMW tool. Part#3034-2 for $58.80 at PelicanParts.com

Mine is a M44 and I did it without the tool with no issues at all. I specifically put the M44 flywheel back on my crank just to pull the crank pully bolt.

As I stated above if you find a bolt and nut then use the nut to force the bolt into the flywheel pin loction it will pin it nicely and you should have no issues at all removing that front crank bolt...If you want purchase the tool or get creative and find a bolt and nut for free and save $100.

The fun part is torqueing the bolt to the right spec when you put it back together...

John S

The Deed is DONE
 

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to leave a quick note about my experience with these.

When I needed to remove my crank bolt at roughly 220k to replace a self-destructed vibration damper (and timing cover...), I welded up a piece of 4' pipe on an old crank pulley to use to lock the crank, then tried a 30" breaker bar with a 4' jack handle (about 5-6' of leverage) with no luck. Next I tried an I-R air wrench rated at 1,300 ft/lbs with no luck.

My final solution was to slowly heat the bolt with a torch until it was a uniform cherry red (giving time for the heat to soak down the bolt to the threaded portion), let the head cool slightly so as not to twist it off, and it came off easily.

Moral: If you think you're doing something wrong, you're probably not, as these things are TIGHT.

Also: Yes, it IS a normal right-hand thread. You start to wonder after the heavy artillery has no effect on it.

- Eric