Pro tip: Loosen the fan belt before you try to torque the harmonic balancer bolt

Was helping a buddy swap an engine on a 1995 F-250 at his shop in Billings last Saturday. Spent 45 minutes fighting that bolt before I realized the belt was tensioned and holding the pulley. Has anyone else figured out a faster way to break those bolts loose on a tight engine bay?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_nina27d ago

Honestly, did you try hitting it with an impact or just a breaker bar first?

caleb26227d agoTop Commenter

Tbh I went straight for the impact, but that's mostly because I dont own a breaker bar and my neighbor laughed at me when I asked to borrow his. Ended up ugga duggaing it for like 30 seconds before realizing the bolt was already stripped from the last guy. Really made me miss having a simple breaker bar just sitting in my garage collecting dust instead of my pride.

paige8613d ago

Oh, I think you might be mixing up "ugg dugg" with how an impact actually works. An impact wrench gives a short burst of torque to loosen bolts, not a continuous 30 second spin like a drill. If it was really an impact you were using, you'd have felt it hammering, not just humming along.