BlazeGS3

I changed my timing belt over the holidays and as others have discovered, having an auto tranny makes getting the bolt holding the crank pulley on quite difficult to remove because there is no good way to hold the crank from turning. Having done this before on other vehicles, and assuming you are replacing the drive belt when doing this procedure (it's not cheap from Lexus - $90), I used a procedure that is probably the easiest way to get the crank bolt loose.

Summary:
- To loosen the bolt: Using the drive belt, wrap it around the crank pulley and continue wrapping the drive belt around clockwise overlapping itself partially, and end up with enough of the drive belt left to wrap it around the front sway bar. Because this is difficult to imagine, I took three pics (two below the car, one above) showing what I'm talking about.




I locked the end of the drive belt around the sway bar using vice grips by pinching the end together with the side of the drive belt. In doing this, you've created a way to solidly hold the crank pulley in place when you go to turn the crank bolt. The next step is to actually turn the bolt, which is no easy matter. The torque specified on the bolt from the manual is 239 ft/lbs., and it probably takes more than that to break it free. Most air tools can't do it, so it will take a long breaker bar and probably some extensions to it. I've included a pic of the breaker bar I used as well as the extensions. It's hard to tell how long the extensions extend as they sit at an angle, but together it created a wrench over 6 feet long, and it took me leaning all 200 lbs of weight to break the bolt loose.

- To tighten the bolt: Simply reverse the wrapping of the drive belt (counterclockwise) and perfrom the same procedure but turn the other way. I didn't have a torque wrench large enough or that went high enough to measure 239 ft/lbs of torque, so I simply used the same breaker bar and extension and got it pretty tight but not ridiculous tight.

The one other hard job in an overall easy timing belt replacement is getting the pulley itself off. I didn't take any pics of this, but it's pretty simple. There are two threaded holes in the pulley itself. Using bolts that are about 4-5 inches long and a simple metal plate with a hole drilled in each end that is the same spacing as the holes in the pulley, you can work the pulley off by leaving the crank bolt in (only screw it in a few turns so it is very loose), putting this plate on top of the bolt, screw in both bolts into the two holes in the pulley and crank each of the two bolts one or two turns each before turning the other one or two turns and just work the pulley off. Sort of hard to describe so if anyone wants a pic of the metal plate and bolts I used and an idea of how to set it up I'd be happy to take another pic.

Hope this helps some. The timing belt job took me 5 hours to do the first time and well over an hour was spent figuring out how best to get these two things off. Next time it should be a 3-4 hour job, and it's pretty easy if you are mechanically inclined and have a manual (volume 1).

Good luck.

Blaze

turbogs300

You can also go to harbor frieght.com and buy a pulley holder for $9 It's simillar to a belt and has a large handle for torque to hold the pulley from moving.

BlazeGS3

I hope it has a long, strong handle, but that would be a cool thing to have.

aliga

iTrader: (147)

it would have taken 2 secs using the starter and a ratchet jammed on the floor

gompka

iTrader: (6)

I tried that with a 4 foot extension on the wrench and it didn't even move. I had to take it in to a shop where they heated the bolt with an acetylene torch and it came off with an impact like butter. The stock bolt is glued/threadlocked.

BlazeGS3

Never thought about heating the bolt - good idea. I tried using my imact wrench (rated 250lb/ft) and it didn't budge it - not even close. When the bolt finally broke free, it sounded like I snapped the extension rod.

Cycling the starter I read in several other posts, but I have to admit that seems like a Darwin Award way to do it. Something is bound to go wrong.

whitegs3

Thanks for the tip I did mine yesterday and it worked like a charm!

Eric-RPS13-

Man I love having air tools makes **** like this so much easier
and a pulley puller set to

gompka

iTrader: (6)

yea but in this case airtools won't work unless you have a torch to heat the bolt. My impact with 160 psi behind it didn't even phase the bolt. It just laughed back at me lol

Eric-RPS13-

ah ok I thought you meant in normal condittions no if the bolt was seized
mine took about a solid minute of impacts to get off. Little buggers don't like moving.
I broke a breaker bar on it, so I just said screw it and went wild with the impact (it was 11 pm), my neighbors love me lol

BlazeGS3

Glad it helped you whitegs3