Your thinking is solid. A PVC pipe is fine, same with a large washer. Whatever allows you to safely (meaning no damage) press in the seal is fine. The seals get pressed in all the way until they bottom out on the bore, there is no specific depth they get pressed in and then you stop.

The hardest part is getting the seal go start going in straight. At any point when pressing them, if the seal starts going in more than a little bit crooked, stop and try again.

Thank you for all the info, Lexus2000.

I started on my timing belt job today, but everything came to a halt when trying to remove the
crankshaft pulley bolt.

That sucker is on there good and can't remove it!

I've tried the bump-start method, thinking that it would easily break free like my 1MZ did, but to no avail. Not surprised it didn't, considering other people's experience with them.

I've also tried an impact gun on the crank bolt, but that wasn't enough to break it free either!

I am stumpped on how to remove this bolt. I was considering of buying the special tool to hold
the crank pulley and in hopes to break the bolt free with a breaker bar. However, the grease monkeys
at the garage said that I could potentially snapp the tooth if I did it this way. Is this true?

Does anyone have any advice for me? I'm pretty desperate lol.

Does anyone have any experience with the special crank pulley tool?

Check this diagram for the torque specs

Attachment 428226

Stubborn pulley bolts can be a real problem. Whatever you do, do NOT round off the bolt head or you will be in a world of hurt. I have never seen a crank pulley holder that is strong enough when the bolt is on that tight, the holder bolts threading into the balancer just sheer right off like nothing.

Another method is to remove the starter and put a pry bar or something in the teeth of the flex plate, I've had success with this. But if you don't have a tool that happens to be just the right side, it won't work.

My advice, take it somewhere that has experience and a big impact gun, the bolt should come off for them right away. Heating the bolt with oxy/acetylene is another option, but I have never tried this I don't like using excessive heat.

BTW Toyota makes a specific tool for holding the pulley, that would probably work for you.

I'm in the middle of my timing belt job right now ('05 ES330, 93K miles, actually starting to put things back together). A few tips/observations:

* I actually started out by removing the intake plenum and all the spark plugs. I planned to change the plugs anyway, and having the plugs out makes it much easier to spin the crank.

* Be sure to heed the warnings in the FSM about spinning the crank CCW about 60d before you remove the timing belt. The cams have a tendency to suddenly spring backwards, and if the pistons are at TDC when they do this, you can bend valves. :egads:

* My crank bolt popped right off with my impact gun, no problem. :woot: Even if you do manage to get it off, you need something to hold the pulley for re-assembly, so you can apply the 162 ft-lbs required. I made a simple tool out of a piece of flat plate with a couple of tubes welded on, if I get a chance I'll post a pic later of it in use. I've used it at least 4 times now on other cars, always worked great.

* I also had no trouble getting those long studs out of the water pump with the Torx socket. :woot:

* I was pleasantly surprised to be able to not only get the cam pulleys off, but also get my cam seals replaced. It's a good thing I did because the front seal was weeping oil. It was easier than I thought, but probably because I was thoroughly prepared. I made a very stout cam sprocket holding tool yesterday and worked perfectly. The other thing that saved the day was my new Makita BDA350 right-angle drill.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...fL._SX385_.jpg

I already have a large assortment of Makita LXT tools and batteries, so all I had to buy was the bare tool, and it was worth it. I was able to easily sneak this drill in and CAREFULLY drill a 3/32" hole in the cam seal, then barely start a 1" long #6 sheet metal screw into the hole, and pull out the seal with pliers. Worked perfect.

* I also made seal drivers out of 1-1/2" PVC pipe. For the cams, I used a pipe cap with a slice of pipe cemented in, then I drilled a 1/2" hole in the cap, got a big fender washer and an M12x1.25x40 bolt out my bin (I think it's an old brake caliper bolt). A little grease on the new seal, slide it on, then the driver, and gently crank in the bolt until it "seats" the seal flush with the head.

* For the crankshaft, I got a coupling, added a slice of pipe on one side so it was flush with the end of the coupling, then I put another piece of pipe in the other end of the coupling so the driver was about 3" long. I did have to grind the inside of the pipe out just a tiny bit. Then similar to the cam seals, I used the crank bolt to "push" the seal home until it was perfectly flush with the oil pump housing. Took only a few minutes using stuff I already had here.

* Take a zip tie and tie back that pesky PS hose at the rear cam so it's out of the way.

Back at it, hope to have the car back on the road in the morning.

Here's a couple crappy cell phone shots of my crank holding tool:

Posted from ClubLexus.com App for Android

EDIT: Speaking of crappy, what's with this app that won't let you post a photo? I'll try later when I can D/L the photos to my laptop.

Thanks for the added info. Lexus200 and all of you's.

I ended up putting my car back together and drove to my work where we have an
industrial size air compressor.

Hooked the impact gun up to the crank pulley bolt and VOILA, the bolt spun off like butter!

Turns out that my little 10 gallon air compressor didn't have enough juice to spin off the bolt.
It couldn't even twist my nipple if i even tried lol.

Anyway, i ended up just adding a little grease to the bolt and installed it back on.
I'll tackle the timing belt next weekend when I have more free time.

This will also give me more time to get a hold of an angle drill and also fabricate a crank pulley
holder.

I have access to a bridgeport, welder and a whole mess of scrap metal, so i'll be making my
own "special tool" for the crank pulley.

It's good to hear that your timing belt job is going smoothly, unlike my weekend experience haha.

How did you break free your cam bolts?

The picture of your homemade tool is not showing up :(

So I don't think I'll be able to obtain an angle drill to do the cam\crank seals...

I'm considering of renting a seal puller from autozone.

Does anyone have any experience with these seal pullers?

Had to download the photos from my phone to my computer so I could upload them here.

Here's my cam pulley holding tool. The first photo is the business end of the tool, it is made out of 1/4" x 1-1/4" bar stock. I took a pair of Grade 8 7/16" bolts and cut the threaded parts off, welded them into the stock to create 2 stout pins. This is essentially how the SST tool works. The second photo shows the tool in position, breaking the front cam bolt loose. Worked like a charm!

Note: it is essential that you rotate the crank 60deg CCW before messing with the cams! As soon as you turn the cam pulleys, they will want to "kick" due to valve spring pressure. If this happens with the crank at TDC, you may bend valves!

And here is my crank holding tool. Just a chunk of flat plate, with a big hole large enough for the 21mm socket to go through, then a pair of smaller hole with support tubes welded on. I use a pair of grade 10.2 bolts to bolt it to the crank pulley, then brace the plate against the frame rail.

A few day's late on my posts...

So I ended up finishing my timing belt job last weekend. Disassembled the car friday night
and finished everything up Saturday evening. All and all, it took me about 8+ hours to replace the timing belt,
water pump, idler, hydraulic tensioner and pulley, and crank seal.


However, I was unable to replace the cam seals... :(

Those bolts are on so freakin' tight!
None of the tools i've made could do any justice
to those bolts. The cam pulley tool I made at work snapped into two pieces. Probably from
poor quality metal.
The "timing belt screwed to a block of wood" tool could not hold the pulley either.
I ended up tearing the sheet rock screws out of the 2x4 used for the tool. The second attempt
just split the old timing belt in half lol.

I'm not too concerned about the cam seals though. If they start to leak, it will give me an excuse
to replace timing belt again. Hopefully, i'll have the SST tool by the time that comes around.

Check out the photo below. It appears as if all the components were original to the car.
Along with the brown dust coating everything, the timing belt formed a "Groove" on the idler pulley.
It wasn't in the best of shape either, considering the idler pulley had some play in it.
Water pump says "toyota" on it also.

'twas a fun day it was

Glad you managed to get the timing belt job done.

How many miles did the car have?

Did you use a torque wrench on the idler, tensioner and water pump bolts?

And how did you manage to remove the water pump without removing timing cover # 3 (since you couldn't take the cams off)?? Did you actually remove those stubborn studs?

The car has 128K.
According to the carfax, the car has had a rigorous maintenance history
with the dealership, but no indication if the timing belt has ever been replaced.

I'm just relieved to finally get the timing belt out of the way, it was hard to drive a car knowing
that it could potentially break any day now lol.

And yes, an inch-pound and foot-pound torque wrench were used in the job, along with all the
proper torque specs. Like I said, i'm still scarred by your little mis-happen mentioned in your
previous thread haha. I had to of check the torque specs of everything at least three times to
be certain that everything was properly torqued.

Although I ran into stubborn crank and cam bolts, the water pump studs surprisingly didn't
give me too much trouble. I was able to remove both studs with an external torx socket and quarter inch ratchet.
Though it took me almost 15 minutes to remove both studs, I didn't want to risk snapping
the heads off, so I took my time with them.

Before installing, I greased up all the stubborn bolts and studs so they will be easier to remove
on the next timing belt change (hopefully)

:woot:

Mine had 180Km (114K miles). I had the brown dust everywhere just like yours.

Was your water-pump leaking or weeping?

How did you torque down the crank bolt?

No kidding.

Besides all the brown dust, the belt looked okay. Looked like it could of lasted more miles.

My waterpump was fine, no leaks anywhere whatsoever. Though the tensioner shown signs
of very little leaking oil.

I was surprised of the condition of the idler pulley. Not only did the pulley have play, but timing belt
worn a "groove" into the pulley. It had to of been original. As a matter of fact, i'm assuming everything
was original to the car.

Unfortunately, I was unable to properly torque the crank bolt. My torque wrench only has a maximum
setting of 100 ft lbs.
I torqued the bolt to 100 ft lbs, then gave it a few more quarter turns with my breaker bar.

To hold the pulley while torquing, i used two long screws in my pulley puller kit and a breaker bar to
hold it in place.

Hopefully, that's enough to hold it on.