SkillOBskilled

iTrader: (1)

So I got the spacers and the intake on, no problems.

We had some trouble with the pulley and the headers, so if someone could help me out it would be greatly appreciated. I took off work tomorrow so work will commence in the morning.

a) how do I get the pulley off, I don't have that specialty tool
- Can I hold put the car in 1st, hold the breaks, and try and break the bolt? Is that not putting too much strain on the tranny?
- How else can I stop the pulley from turning?
- The pulley is not counter threaded is it?!

b) how do I detension the belt driving the water pump? and how do I replace that belt w/o having to open the engine mount thats in the middle of the belt?

c) how do I break the nuts on the downpipe by the cat?
- I put PB all over several times, but they are still almost rust welded
- I read the 10mm is the way to go here, but the XS headers came with 8mm, whats the correct size?
- I am just trying to get the nuts off, I cant drill through the bolts as they are part of the Cat assembly, correct?

Thanks in advance fellas

Kulrevon

A.) that is one way to get it off. The easiest is usually to use an impact gun but if you don't have an air source you are out of luck.
I have a weird way of getting the bolt off on my prelude without an impact gun. I put the car in gear. jack up the pulley side of the car. so there is enough weight on the other wheel so it won't spin. I put a breaker bar on the pulley bolt. and I put another break bar on the axle nut. I can't remember if its 1st or reverse that you want to be in. But you want it so when you try to tighten the axle nut it loosens the pulley bolt. I know its an A** backwards way of getting the bolt off but it worked every time. The only down side to this is that when you need to change an axle that nut will be amazingly tight.

B.)The water pump is run off the timing belt. If you don't know what you are doing there I wouldn't try it. Messing up a timing belt can give you huge problems.

C.) If the nuts and bolts are rusted enough you should just break/cut them off. Don't use any of the xs hardware.

Hope this helps

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

They buy it. It's not that much money.

You guys sound like you will break something doing it that way.

If you work on your car you should invest in the correct tools for it. Makes life easier.

SkillOBskilled

iTrader: (1)

I ended up going to my last resort and starting the engine with a breaker bar on the pulley. The bolt came right off. Its a strong method if you have the nerve.

The water pump doesnt run of the timing belt, there is a separate belt that is dedicated for the water pump. It was tough to get on, but the only way I found was to put the belt on the water pump and try to pull the pulley down down far enough to get it on the crank. I found that pulling the woodruff key (the little alignment pin) mad the task somewhat easier. To get the replacement belt I loosened the bolts on the engine mount one at a time as not to loose their proper alignment. We wedged the belt through the gap thats created by pushing the engine mount up, or the engine down. (the former way made me a bit more comfortable)

I will leave the headers for another day. I ll continue spraying PB on those bolts until them. I cant just cut them as I think the bolts are welded in the cat assembly, so i am forced to somehow remove just the bolts. More chipping and PB hopefully should do the trick.

SkillOBskilled

iTrader: (1)

It was the power steering pump, cant assume anything these days

Kulrevon

I thought I was going crazy for a min. And I had no idea how you were dealing with the water pump if you hadn't even gotten the pulley off.

LiquidCLs6

my friend and i found the bolts from A-pipe to the cat to be the easiest to remove... we just used liquid wrench, couldn't get it with our hands so we used our leg strength and the bolts came off pretty easy. hope this way works for someone else in the future as good as it worked for us

tmo6885

the bolts to the cat on my car were so rusted that they didnt even look like nuts and bolts. i couldnt even get a socket to fit over the nut which is on the header side. the way i got them off is i have air tools with a cutoff wheel to cut through the nuts so i could get the stock pipe off. that worked but then you have the problem that the bolts on the flange on the cat side are useless and then you have to drill them out. this was a major pain in the ass and took me a couple drill bits because the bolts are really strong steel. i ended up dropping the entire exhaust from the cat back and pulling it out from the car which gave me room to work on it. then i ground down the tops of the bolts to see if they were welded in. turns out they arent welded they are pressed in very very very tightly. i ended up having to by a thing called a carbide unibit which was strong enough to drill through the bolts and not break off. after i got them out i just used new nuts and bolts to make the connection. all in all it was a huge pain in the ass and took me about 8 hours to do a job that i could have done in 2 if the bolts werent rusted so damn bad.