Stuck Crank Bolt. Synchronizers. Ugh!

[Paul Heneghan <paul.heneghan@bbc.co.uk>]

> My (good) mechanic spent 4 hours today, with a 3/4" impact gun trying to
> remove the crank bolt on the sacred CQ. He said to me, on the phone,
> "These have been tough to remove before. But I've never failed like
> this. Get this damn car out of my garage."
>
> Off to another mechanic.

Good idea.  He obviously hasn't worked on one of these before.

>  Anyone have any tips?

I've removed the crank bolt on two I5 engines and in both cases (because of
the Loctite on the threads) a huge amount of torque was required.  Standing
on the end of a two foot extension did nothing (2ft x 200lbs = 400ftlb or
0.6m x 90kg x 9.81m/s/s = 540Nm), so I used a six foot extension and put all
my weight on it about 4 feet away from the crank bolt (4ft x 200lbs =
800ftlb or 1.2m x 90kg x 9.81m/s/s = 1080Nm).  That shifted it!

Remember to reapply some Loctite (prevents slipping and also provides
watertight seal to stops threads rusting) and do the bolt up to the
recommended spec (350Nm with tool 2079 and Audi torque wrench, 450Nm if tool
2079 not available; 450Nm = 332ftlb).

My ex-mechanic didn't bother doing it up tight enough a few years ago.  The
result was that it loosened and chewed up the locating peg on the crank gear
which led to valve timing problems and resulted in an engine power output of
about 10hp!

Paul