My friend brought his Mazda 626 over to my house to work on this week. The first task was to change the harmonic balancer. We quickly got stuck at a point where the bolt (that screws into the crankshaft) just wouldn't budge. We tried a number of things including an impact wrench. Then my friend got a tip from a mechanic friend which we tried and it worked!

So, what you do is put a breaker bar on the rascally bolt. Then lower the car (assuming it was jacked up first) down until the breaker bar can't rotate without hitting the ground. We had a short breaker, so we actually put the end of the bar on a jackstand. Then disconnect the spark plug wires and turn the key a couple of times, just tapping it for a very short time. The crankshaft will turn and the bar will break the bolt free. It only took about 10 times and it was free! Just pay attention to which direction the bolt turns and which way the pulley turns.

Hope that helps someone. It would have helped me about4 years ago when I got stuck trying to break the same bolt free on my car.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the good tip. Were the bolts held in place with Loc-Tite? I know 850s' flywheel is kept in place with some bolts and you apply Loc-Tite. Also, when people need to apply an enormous amount of force onto a fastener, it is imperative that they use 6-point socket, instead of 12-point as 6-point sockets provide more surface contact areas than 12-point sockets.

Cheers,


JPN

 

I don't know what it was held on with, but it was well tightened and held to the shaft (an impact wrench was unable to break it loose).

I agree with the 6-sided socket.
You don't want to strip that bolt; another friend of mine had to drill his off after it got stripped.