Loose Crank bolt?

[boat]

A couple of weeks ago when we were doing my clutch, it was found and brought to my attention that my crank bolt was loose, almost to the point of falling out. I have had this SHO for the last 10k miles. I was told by the previous owner that he used red locktite on the crank bolt b/c it wouldn't stay tight. Which back in the summer I was worried that I would not be able to get it out when it came time to do my front 60k. The previous owner acted really funny when I called him this past summer to ask him some questions about that engine and he immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was accusing him of lying or something. Lets just say we found more than our fair share of things "jerry-rigged" from when they did the engine swap in this SHO 17k miles ago.

We torqued it down to about 120ft/lbs about 2 weeks ago. This morning I decided to check it, after driving about 300 miles. It was just a little loose, loose enough that I could get about maybe a 1/8 of a turn out of it to tighten it. I tightened it, but neither Bubba nor myself could get the torque wrench to "click" at 119ft/lbs. Not sure what is going on here.

So here in a week or so, I plan on digging a little deeper and pulling the crank pulley off to see what else is going on.

Of you all who have been around a while, what would most likely cause the crank bolt to not stay tight?

Is there a time table that this should be checked every so many xx-thousand miles?

Of what I have read, the crank bolt can lose some of its ability to tighten over time, or by being over-tightened, or improperly tightened whatever that might look like.

Could this be early signs of crank cancer? What exactly is crank cancer?? I have not been able to find this answer.

It is not running bad at the moment, but I am not liking finding that crank bolt loose after I was told back in January when I bought the SHO, that there was red loctite on the crank bolt and it shouldn't come out.

Discuss...

 

[Phoenix]

I donno what causes what , but usually a crank cancer is a loose bolt with a damaged woodruff key and or keyway of the harmonic balancer. When its really bad , you usually need a woodruff key , a harmonic balancer (crank pulley) , and the timing belt crank pulley.

Thats what I saw so far , allthough it never hapened to me yet.

 

[jayro]

Not sure about what would cause the bolt to get loose. Did you try and tighten it with the wheels on the ground and in gear? The easiest way I could reach mine with a torque wrench was from the top, but I had to pull a few things out of the way (battery ect). As far as crank cancer....from everything that I have seen is that if the crank bolt is not tight it makes it so the lower timing belt sprocket on the crank (sorry, I don't know the correct name of it) will move and shift. Over time this can wear out the groove in the sprocket, but whats worse is that it can wear the key (the thing that sticks out the side of the crank to keep the sprocket from spinning). This would make the sprocket shift and mess up the timing no matter how tight the crank bolt is. While some people havev been able to rig up some things to fix it, I believe that it can total the crank. In researching I found that a quick check for crank cancer is to pull the upper timing belt cover and look for a bronze colored resedue. Hope this helps.

Jeremy

 

[K-Dawg]

Forget the torque wrench. Get the biggest and baddest breaker bar you can find and give that sucker everything you got.

 

[hawkeye18]

That crank bolt has probably never been tightened enough. If you're not torquing it to >150 lb/ft, you're not doing it right.

take it to a shop and have them use their biggest, baddest 1/2" air gun on it and have 'em tighten it 'til it won't tighten no more.

Loc-tite is a waste of time; it gets too hot down there for it and it melts, removing any locking power it had.

 

[Eric VerValin]

Forget the torque wrench. Get the biggest and baddest breaker bar you can find and give that sucker everything you got.

You know I have that bar... And FWIW, I've NEVER had one come loose.

 

[boat]

I hear ya, guys. Would that do anything to the rod/main bearings, mainly the mains using the impact gun? But if it has worked, I will have to either get Eric Vervalin's big breaker bar, and/or my brother-n-law's 1/2" impact and just go to town on it. After I inspect everything and find everything in good working condition.

Would it be a good idea to get a new timing belt tensioner, and try to locate a newer crank bolt?

That crank bolt has probably never been tightened enough. If you're not torquing it to >150 lb/ft, you're not doing it right.

take it to a shop and have them use their biggest, baddest 1/2" air gun on it and have 'em tighten it 'til it won't tighten no more.

Loc-tite is a waste of time; it gets too hot down there for it and it melts, removing any locking power it had.

Forget the torque wrench. Get the biggest and baddest breaker bar you can find and give that sucker everything you got.

You know I have that bar... And FWIW, I've NEVER had one come loose.

 

[Eric VerValin]

That bar will break that 1/2" impact... go 3/4" or use the bar.

An impact on the crank wouldn't do a thing to the mains. The timing belt tensioner wouldn't have a thing to do with it either. I think you have thin threads either on the bolt, or threads in the crank.

This motor has a secret, and someone isn't telling you. Someone out there knows whats up. I'd start with the guy who wanted to offer $500. I bet he knows...

 

[hawkeye18]

I hear ya, guys. Would that do anything to the rod/main bearings, mainly the mains using the impact gun? But if it has worked, I will have to either get Eric Vervalin's big breaker bar, and/or my brother-n-law's 1/2" impact and just go to town on it. After I inspect everything and find everything in good working condition.

Would it be a good idea to get a new timing belt tensioner, and try to locate a newer crank bolt?

I've never had any issues with an air gun. I've done three cars (one of them three times lol) this way and none of them have ever had problems. That's not to say that it won't ever cause problems - it might - but real-world experience says probably not. Just make sure you have the gun going straight on so you're not placing angular loads on the bolt/crank.

You can't really tell what shape a crank bolt is in just by looking at it as far as whether it's streched out or not, so it's kind of a crap shoot. The tensioner is up to you. Is the bearing making noise? If it's not, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[bubba]

Hey Boat...Looks like your "friend" had some problems with the car and the samething came up

http://www.shoforum.com/showthread.php?t=73363

 

[boat]

The bar it is.

I know the motor has a secret, and I have not liked what it has been telling me. During that weekend of work, Bubba and Storm pointed out to me on the front head, where it meets the block, there is/was a coolant leak where the front head meets the block, on the trans side of the engine below the coil pack. Not sure if it still exists or not. I checked the other night, but the white towel came out dry and clean. If it is leaking there, it is slow enough now, that it is burning off before any of it has time to run down the block or drip on ground. The way the 3.2 swap was done, there were trans to engine bolts missing, 2-3 total missing. The oil level sender unit was not extended to the other side of the oil pan either. Looks like it was done in a hurry.

As far as the guy who offered $500, I know who he is, and he is here on the forum from time to time, at this point he shall remain nameless. I may try to contact him and see if he might tell me anything.

This past summer we did the upper 60k and found all of the intake gaskets and the butterfly's full of silicone, the plugs over gapped, and no horns in the intake. Storm noticed that the engine may have been a reman'd engine by the gray color on the block, as that is the designator of a reman'd engine.

I am sort of at the point of not wanting to trust this engine. IF when we dig into the the front 60k and don't find anything serious, ie: like the crank bolt just wasn't tight enough, then I may be a little more trusting of it. We have yet to dig into the rod bearings, have not heard any strange ticking, and no oil light. These are next on the list as well as the front 60k. Should hopefully know some answers after all that is done.

That bar will break that 1/2" impact... go 3/4" or use the bar.

This motor has a secret, and someone isn't telling you. Someone out there knows whats up. I'd start with the guy who wanted to offer $500. I bet he knows...

 

[boat]

Not sure he had the same problem. The crank bolt was in WAY too tight, that he couldn't bust it loose with a 1/2" impact. The tightness of that bolt was most likely lost some of its tightening ability at the point it was over-tightened, and then had to be loosened up with a 3/4" impact.

Makes me wonder about the person he purchased the motor from. Just exactly where it came from and what exactly its history is. Because convienently no one seems to "know" the history about it, and they get defensive about it or they can't tell me anything about it.

Supposedly this engine was serviced by FPS 40k-50k miles before the engine went in the car, the documentation for that engine seemed to be gone, may very well be. I don't think Doug Lewis would let something that has these issues go out of his business, it would cause his business harm.

Hey Boat...Looks like your "friend" had some problems with the car and the samething came up

http://www.shoforum.com/showthread.php?t=73363

 

[itwonder]

I suppose is possible the ****** on the crank bolt, which provides the locking function, has been damaged by overtightening. Ford has a torque specification for that bolt, and there is a reason for it. I would inspect the crank pulley for condition, looking for separated rubber, etc.

Making a small hole in the RF wheel well liner that is aligned with the crank bolt provides easy access for checking the torque. I use a long 1/2" extension from HF to reach in there, and I check it each time I rotate tires.

 

[bubba]

There's all ready a "window" in there! So the PO had the same problem as boat had! I still think somethings fish about this all! IDK, just my thoughts

I suppose is possible the ****** on the crank bolt, which provides the locking function, has been damaged by overtightening. Ford has a torque specification for that bolt, and there is a reason for it. I would inspect the crank pulley for condition, looking for separated rubber, etc.

Making a small hole in the RF wheel well liner that is aligned with the crank bolt provides easy access for checking the torque. I use a long 1/2" extension from HF to reach in there, and I check it each time I rotate tires.

 

[boat]

Rather than speculation here are the facts of what I know

The facts of what I know:
-Crank bolt was found loose
-the engine runs hotter than it should
-previous owner got defensive when I was asking him some simple questions about the engine
-another person had an opportunity to buy the car and didn't
-there is a coolant stain where the front engine head and engine block meet
-there is a window hole cut out in the fender liner to get to the crank bolt easier
-the crank bolt was just a little bit loose on Saturday when I checked it

I am planning tonight after work to pull out the crank bolt, and to see if I can find anything "funny".

I will report back on what I find, my HOPE is that I find I need a quick fix, my expectation is there is a sick, dirty secret this engine is hiding, that could result in a new/different engine.

 

[Bob Gervais]

I'm trying to figure out how the previous issues of the PO not being able to get the crank bolt out has anything to do with the problems you're having now.

IMO, when the PO built the motor/did the swap, he didn't tighten the crank bolt enough. As was mentioned, F the tq wrench, use a good quality impact gun or monster bar on it.

FYI, the SHO block, from the factory, is..... Ford engine gray. Paint color has nothing to do with reman'd or not.

Sounds like the PO did a ****** job with the swap. If it were me, I'd go over everything and make sure everything's correct and tight. Maybe he's limp wristed and can't tighten stuff. Better bet is that he's using ****** tools, ****** methods, and is a hack. It happens, often.

Good luck with your repairs.

 

[boat]

An update...

Well I decided since I had an evening thought I would do a little investigation in to what my crank bolt "woes" really are. The biggest thing I found was not just remnants of red loctite on the crank bolt, but who puts red loctite on a crank and crank pulley? :braincramp: I think I need to speak my mind against those who were apart of this engine swap. Not done well, with bolts missing and such. Wanted to say thanks to Bubba for dropping by and giving me a hand last night, the help was appreciated.

Not a good sign of things to come or things past.

Did the starter bump, bolt came out fine. But there is some powdery gunk in where the crank bolt came out of. Key way looks good from the front. Notice the red loc-tite between the crank pulley and the crank?

Crank bolt threads look good.

The back of the crank bolt, the face that rides on the harmonic balancer, has some small grooves in it. Thinking this came from the last 10k miles of not being checked for tightness.

Tried to see if I could find any play in how easily the crank pulley came on or off, well, its not budging b/c someone put red loctite on the crank and crank pulley! There is a good 1/16" to 1/8" gap between the 2, this is not a good sign either. This was after taking a wooden block to it with a rubber mallet, trying to get it to move back on the crank itself. It was noticed that the face of the pulley and the face of the crank, the crank face sets back in about 1/8" of an inch from the pulley.

Red loctite dust on the timing belt

After cleaning the threads, put some blue loctite as it was suggested by someone here.

Hey look what I found, up inside the fender well just below the power steering reservoir, I thought this was a rust free car.

Add some more stuff to some of the missing parts/bolts of the engine swap that happened. These were the only 3 bolts holding the top timing cover on.

And finally, putting the torque to the bolt. We employed the "big bar" method, of torquing the crank bolt. We got it to 150ft/lbs. We checked it and tightened a little more with the torque wrench. My ratchet seemed to have a lot of play in it, and wouldn't ratchet back very far if at all and there was not a lot of swing we could get on it. But did get a majority of the tightening on it this way.

 

[Bob Gervais]

The crank pulley face does sit higher than the crank face, so that's not a problem. Also, although there does seem like there's slop between the crank pulley ID and the crank OD, IMO it's an optical illusion created by the red loctite. There's chamfer on the end of the crank, that's what the space is. If you had that much clearance between the crank pulley and crank, it would have f'd up the woodruff key and crank pulley by now. Looks to me like the PO got confused on where to put the red loctite.

Too bad it's such a hack job, how much did you pay for this car?

 

[Eric VerValin]

With the hood on, and that bar, you kinda gotta "click it" by hand to be able to use it like that.. Probally shoulda told u that... hold the bar up, and see if you can turn the socket end by hand a little..

Or pop that hood off real quick... not hard to do at all....

 

[SHODWN]

"I found was not just remnants of red loctite on the crank bolt, but what kind of ***** puts red loctite on a crank and crank pulley? I think I need to speak my mind against those who were apart of this engine swap. Such a hack job."

You already posted the answer to your question in a post above!