[deep-six]

Hi All

Need a bit of help with fitting a new water pump to my 89 Vitara 1.6. I started stripping it down yesterday but found I couldn't get the plastic timing belt cover off to expose all the water pump bolts without removing the crank pulley.
I had this same problem with my previous Vitara when attempting to replace the crank seal.
The crank bolt is mega tight and working on it with a breaker bar just makes the engine turn over, even put it in first gear but just proceeded to run over my feet.
So question is how do you get the crank bolt undone, and which direction does it unscrew??

Cheers

Ric

[royce]

first of all unless you want to replace the crank seal you don't need to undo that bolt, just the 5 little ones holding the outer pulley on

I recommend this cause if you cant get it undone you don't have the gear - muscle to get it done back up tight enough to not cause a problem later on, hell I can do them up and I still manage to loosen the bastard thing without trying.

Also, 5th gear and handbrake on will lock the engine, not first.

[DarkHorse]

Try in 5th?

EDIT: Too slow.

[deep-six]

Hi Guys

Thanks for that, actually should have mentioned while I'm replacing the water pump I was gonna have a crack at replacing the crank seal that has been leaking ever since I got this Vitara.
5th Gear you say, not a bad idea, I actually thought about that and given the leverage you have in 1st gear over the weight of the vehicle 5th makes a lot of sense.
I have heard the crank bolts can come loose after a while and cause major damage so I will be sure to tighten it right up, probably some loctite wouldn't go astray.
So my final question is which way do you undo the bolt. I'm thinking it would have to undo in the same direction as engine rotation so that it wouldn't tend to loosen as the engine spins???

[buzbox]

Lefty Loosy, righty tighty.

[Scrawny]

Yep, anti-clockwise to undo. I usually put the breaker onto the chassis rail then crank the key. You will need special attention on tightening tho as Royce suggested

[buzbox]

Scrawn wrote:

Yep, anti-clockwise to undo. I usually put the breaker onto the chassis rail then crank the key.

Yep, Or In my case the breaker bar wasn't long enough, an extention on the breaker handle and against the ground did the trick.

To tighten, I tightened as much as I could, then gave it a few sharp blows with a big hammer to nip it up. I couldn't fit my rattle gun in there with the radiator being in the way.

[pyrohamish]

Take the radiator out...makes it a million times easier to work in there.
Make sure you're using 6 point sockets too.

[deep-six]

thanks guys, that breaker bar on the chassis trick is a good one, got the bolt undone with a couple of flicks of the starter.
Wish I had known that before I pulled half the front end off to remove the radiator, air con condensor and electric fan.
Anyway was no loss as I got the rattle gun in there and tightened up the bolt in the end so all good.
Gave the bolt plenty of loctite plus rattled it up as hard as I could so hoping that does the trick and it doesn't come undone.
Now one last question, how tight is the timing belt supposed to be. I thought it was pretty tight when I first removed it but after re-installing it and pushing the tensioner pulley as far as it would go the belt seems loose??
Maybe my old belt is stretched and I just need a new one but the thing is I don't recall it being that loose when I first started to strip everything down!!

[DarkHorse]

You're not replacing it with a new one anyway? Save getting back in there for another couple of years. Do the water pump as well. For the sake of $50 worth of bits, you've done the hard work...

[Rockhopper]

what he ^^ said. While you're in there do the timing belt as well. Will save you having to do the job again in a few months time

[KEENSY85]

The belts more simple then the water pump is be crazy not change it ,there a non interference engine so maybe not that crazy LOL