A Little Cranky, A Little Pulley

It's going to take forever to get this engine done.  There are so many preliminaries! I spent Sunday afternoon preparing some workbenches so there would be a place to put all the parts on, and didn't get around to the crankshaft pulley until today.  And even then, there were preliminaries.

Do those count as preliminary preliminaries?

My main worry with regard to the crankshaft pulley was making sure I was trying to turn it in the correct direction.  Most of the bolts and screws are "lefty-loosey, righty-tighty", but I'm never sure with crankshaft or camshaft bolts.  Just my luck they'd be the other way around due to the way the shaft rotates.  Is it clockwise, or counter-clockwise?  I didn't pay much attention when the car was still running.

The Hayne's manual didn't say.  Or, if it did, I missed it.  So I got on the Internet (the source of all knowledge, with lots of caveats) and looked around, searching for "Subaru engine crankshaft rotation" and things like that.  They all indicated that the crankshaft rotates clockwise, which means that the bolt is loosened by turning it counter-clockwise.

Well, that's all well and good; but then the question arises: How do I hold the pulley still while turning the bolt?

The manual suggests one of those chaink-link pliers wrapped around the pulley with a breaker bar on the socket wrench.  The Subaru forums on-line strongly suggest wrapping the pulley first in something to protect it from the chain.  I took an old rubber tire and cut it up to provide a protective material.  With the chain pliers around the pulley and the socket wrench on the bolt head, it was ready to go.

All I needed now, was 130 foot-pounds of torque and an engine that wouldn't fall off its stand when that torque is applied.

As Jack Sparrow would say, "It's all a matter of leverage."  (Pronounced LEAVE-a-ridge.)   So I took a long bar clamp and jammed it between the top of the engine and a coolant pipe, then rotated the chain pliers until they stopped against it, then put the breaker bar on the socket wrench and PULLED.  And the pulley bolt went POP!  And it was loose!  Yay!

By then, I was too tired to do any more work, other than taking the timing belt covers off, so called it a day and went off to do other things.

At this rate, the engine should be rebuilt by Christmas.