420A Timing belt cover removal

[RSdriver98]

I'm doing a head swap on a 98 Eclipse RS and the shock tower is in the way of removing the bolts, which are really long, they are going through a bracket and then through the timing belt cover mounted above the big pulley at the bottom.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get the bolts out without pulling the motor?

 

[rstare]

Lol, we were talking about this bolt yesterday in the 2gnt chat , we rated it a 8 in the pita scale. Hardest bolt in the whole car.
You have a few options;
1) Drill a hole where it's hitting the inside of the bay and just pull it out through there. (This will make it much easier for future work)
2) Remove all the other motor mounts and tilt the engine till you can take it out.
3) Do it with the engine out of the car, which you said you don't want to do, but it makes it the easiest.

Edit: There's 3 bolts IIRC, 2 of them you should be able to get out without having to do anything mentioned above, it's that last one that's a real pita.

 

[Tor-Lein]

I have just done this for about the 4th time now.
Heres what i did.

1. Remover passenger side motormount, which you obviously have done.
2. Put a jack under your oilpan, and lift till if won't go higher. You should just clear the AC piping etc. then.
3. Loosen all the bolts in the motormount bracket.
4. Pull the upper bolt. Then pull the other bolts so that it clears 1/2" from the wall.
Then you have to angle the bracket towards the front. Try a couple different angles, it will come out. Patience is key though.. Worked for me

Or follow rstare's advice..

Good luck!

(Unscrew servomotor before jacking! Piping does not handle stress well. According to Haynes..)

 

[RSdriver98]

Yeh i ended up just taking the 2 cams off and now I can't get my head to come loose.. Should the air intake manifold come out with the head or do i need to unbolt it before removing?

 

[bullettdsm]

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/420a-bolt-tech/321751-head-removal.html

MB

 

[jamerican01]

I have just done this for about the 4th time now.
Heres what i did.

1. Remover passenger side motormount, which you obviously have done.
2. Put a jack under your oilpan, and lift till if won't go higher. You should just clear the AC piping etc. then.
3. Loosen all the bolts in the motormount bracket.
4. Pull the upper bolt. Then pull the other bolts so that it clears 1/2" from the wall.
Then you have to angle the bracket towards the front. Try a couple different angles, it will come out. Patience is key though.. Worked for me

Or follow rstare's advice..

Good luck!

(Unscrew servomotor before jacking! Piping does not handle stress well. According to Haynes..)

I really hope this works i've been working on this for 2 weeks now.. off and on of course in the spare time i have... i'm abot ready to drop the engin on the ground and work on it..

 

[nitrokid]

This is going to sound like it wont work. I just changed my head gasket and I had the same problem.

I was going to drill the hole but my drill gave out and I didn't have the money to buy a new one so this is what I did, I hooked the cherry picker up and jacked it up to get all the slack out of the chains them the I unbolted the front motor mount so I could move the engine around more, then jack the cherry picker up till the front bolt can be removed. Once you remove the front bolt it easy to remove the back one.

If you try this and have problem pm me

 

[cs82685]

I have just done this for about the 4th time now.
Heres what i did.

1. Remover passenger side motormount and front motor mount
2. Put a jack under your oilpan, and lift till if won't go higher. You should just clear the AC piping etc. then.
3. Loosen all the bolts in the motormount bracket.
4. Pull the upper bolt. Then pull the other bolts so that it clears 1/2" from the wall.
Then you have to angle the bracket towards the front. Try a couple different angles, it will come out. Patience is key though.. Worked for me. Keep in mind the 3rd bolt may not actually come all the way out of the bracket but you should be able to get it far enough out where you can then remove the bolt and bracket together

Or follow rstare's advice..

Good luck!

(Unscrew servomotor before jacking! Piping does not handle stress well. According to Haynes..)

edited slightly

I really hope this works i've been working on this for 2 weeks now.. off and on of course in the spare time i have... i'm abot ready to drop the engin on the ground and work on it..

See my edits above for some additional help. After you figure it out just right it actually becomes fairly easy to get on and off without having to drill through the frame of your car or remove the motor.

 

[barza21]

There is no NEED to drill a whole in your chassis.

Loosen up all 3 bolts, disconnect the front engine mount and then just jack up the engine through the oil pan or whatever method you feel comfortable with. Once that is done just play with the bolts until they are all completely out.

 

[rush2252]

Im doing a head swap on a 98 Rs N/T eclipse and the shock tower is in the way of removing the bolts, which are really long, they are going through a bracket and then through the timing belt cover mounted above the big pulley at the bottom. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get the bolts out without pulling the motor?

If you jack the motor up as far as it will go with the other three mounts loosened (driver upper tranny and lower front mount ) and then remove the hardline bracket (i believe its a/c they are two lines with a brakcet just take the 12mm bolt off on the passenger inner fender you can just barely squeeze them out. Trust me

-Kolby

Also note I successfully removed the head with intake and exhaust manifolds attached. It saves time IMO.
You just remove the throttle cable EGR tube vacuum and fuel lines and then unplug your sensors of course. I believe labor calls for 10hours for a head gasket job or something crazy. We did it in about 4 drinking BL lime

 

[jamerican01]

Oh btw how much should i have my impact wrench up to. currently it is set at 120 psi. meaning my compressor is set to 120 psi... not sure how much torque that equates to. and how hard is it to remove the crank pulley?

 

[jamerican01]

So i tooik another crack at it. took my time and, yes i got it out. i had to reattach my driver side motor mount by my self and 2 speed jacks. PITA! But now look at the pulley's i was so confused . what all this dust and how can this be? I took some snaps on my camrea phone i for go to change the ligth setting m=on my camera my garage isn't that orange.
<img src="http://www.dsmtuners.com/gallery/files/1/3/7/4/6/image_014.jpg" alt="First Glance" />
Am i see this right?

<img src="http://www.dsmtuners.com/gallery/files/1/3/7/4/6/image_015.jpg" alt="Image 015" />
should the pulley be so free floating?

<img src="http://www.dsmtuners.com/gallery/files/1/3/7/4/6/image_017.jpg" alt="Image 017" />
That i can take it out and put it where i want.

<img src="http://www.dsmtuners.com/gallery/files/1/3/7/4/6/image_019.jpg" alt="Image 019" />
And it seems to be the same for the tensioner pulley!

Oh fudge! I'm in for some long weekends. well I've want to buy new tools anyway. i have a motor deal going on now But i still can't get the crank pulley bot out... i'll try dropping the car on the drivers side and removing it but with what? i dunno! i didn't have enough time to try. i had to pick up the girlfriend if i get a motor from a neon what will i need to do to use it and should i just use the parts from it...

Thanks again guys... when I'm up a running again I'll buy a round. and for the underaged i have jolly rancher for ya.

 

[adamzty]

Those pulleys are ####ed up. Did the motor even run before? That's scary.

 

[RoninEclipse2G]

the pulley bearings shit the bed. hopefully you didn't lose some valves in the carnage. I answered your thread on 2gnt more thoroughly.

 

[Jordan1083]

get a heat gun your gonna need to heat the crank pully up before you try to pull it i found that out the hard way good luck

 

[jk1973]

Holy SH*T! Boy are those pulleys shot!
I replaced my motor with a block from a Dual overhead cam Neon. I just had my head redone. I have a 96 and the original block threw a rod. This was caused by rod bolts failure, so I replaced the rod bolts on the Neon motor with ARP ones. That should solve that from happening again.
When you replace the belt and tensioner I suggest you get a mechanical tensioner. Definitely more reliable then the hydraulic one.