Hello All, new member here, thought I'd pass this on.

Have a 95 SR with the 3.5 DOHC. Several weeks ago I was going into work and the power-steering went out, the lights went dim, the A/T and brake warning lights lighted up. That afternoon, my partner and I jumped it and ran it over to the auto-crafts shop (I'm Army) and it kept making a terrible screeching noise. We got inside and the crank pulley was just flopping around, with none of the belts turning, my partner had replaced the keyway on a 3.0 and thought that was the problem. (Ended up being the pen from the timing gear which holds the pulley sheered)

We tried everything to get the crank bolt out and finally resorted to the "electric wrench" (turning the engine over with a breaker bar set on the steering box, which sheered the bolt. Towed it to the dealership and they say the bolt has to be crossed threaded to have done that. And the crank is ruined and has to be replaced, along with the timing gear and pulley.

Right now considering saleing the whole damn thing for what I can get, hopefully 3k, otherwise the truck is in great shape and I have 3 months till retirement and can't afford the expense of rebuilding the damn thing.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Take Care
Doug

I'm sorry to hear about your expensive problem. Shearing a hardened crank bolt takes quite a bit of force. If the bolt was cross threaded at installation then who did the work? I'm assuming you had a timing belt done at some point unless the previous owner did. I don't know how hard it is to cross thread these bolts but what may have happened is someone used an air gun without first making sure the threads were aligned and just ran it on. An air gun does not allow for much feel. If it was cross threaded then the air gun would not have torqued it properly leading to the pin shear. Some of these bolts have been recalled for replacement as you can find here on the forum. I would also keep the bolt half you have and make sure it was the proper one, grade and type. I don't know how you can fix this for cheap. To do any work on the end of the crank will mean you have to remove it, even if you can save it. A machine shop may have an idea. I would try to find who did the last timing belt and how long ago, and if it is a professional shop you may have legal recourse.

Your best bet is to try and get a mobile machinist to come extract the bolt. It wont be cheap but sure as hell will be cheaper than a rebuild. You can try yourself but it wont be easy. you need to remove evything in front of the engine and use a good right angle drill with carbide bits. Be carfull not to brekk off the bit in the bolt as that will just compund the problem. Its not easy but myself and others have done it successfully. I dont agree with the "crossthreded assesment". Mine did the exact same thing and after extracting the broken bolt the treads were fine. I ran a tap though it to clean it out. That was 4 years ago and montero is doing fine. I replaced the crank sprocket and pully as well since both were dammaged from the spining action.

It is my opinion that this problem stems from when a timming belt is changed and the servicing mechanic improperly torques the crank bolt. Hope this helps, if you decide to do this yourself i can give you a few more tips..

The hard part must be centering the drill bit? Did you use a sleeve and guide?

Thanks

The timing belt was changed about 11 months ago along with the water pump but hadn't called the mechanic that did the work, yet. I doubt I'll get far with him though, being so long. I've thought about taking it to a machine shop and seeing if they could extract it.

Still trying to decide if I want to invest the money into it.

first off sorry to hear about the bad luck... your not the first and you wont be the last. but if it were me, id call a dealer and talk with the head service guy or mabey even a local parts dealer like napa. theyll typically be able to give you the names of some reputable machine shops. call around get estimates for the bolt extraction. it would well be worth the money, to get the bolt extracted just to see the extent of the damage and then make a decision on what to do. if the cranks shot, then that would make it costly, but if alls you need to do is rethread and replace a couple of items it could very well be worth the investment. imho, it would be worth it either way because the 95' is such a solid rig and personally i dont think youd be able to get much out of it by selling with a sheered cs bolt.
p.s. if you decide to sell ill give you 3 hampsters, a bag of empty crushed beer cans & to top it off... 18 snowballs for it sight unseen <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />.

You could make a drill guide that fit over the cranks snout with a drill bushing in it.

You can purchase hardened steel bushings to guide the drill with. Using that with a hand drill would insure centering on the bolt.

Not sure why its stuck but drilling it out may be enough to clena up the reminants and clean up the threads with a tap.

Kevin C

I'm wondering if this problem is not incorrect torque but a bolt too long or hole to short? With the way a few of these crank pulley bolts have been seized in the crank, with the pulley pin broken and the pulley loose, you'd think the pressure on the threads would have been released so that the bolt would come out fairly easily. But if the end of the bolt is torqued into the bottom of the hole then the force on the thread surfaces would still be there even though the pulley is free to spin and the bolt head is not the part producing the clamping. It would pay anyone doing this to measure the hole and bolt length before assembly to make sure the bolt head will bear the force of the torqued bolt.

LMAO, well Grass, maybe if those were full cans of beer, I might consider your kind offer...

I didn't know they made bushing or aids to help center the drill bit. I think drilling and retapping is a little beyond me so I think I'll take it back to machine shop for that and maybe I can get her back on the road. Hindsight is 20x20, and I probably should of taken it to a machine shop instead of the Mitsubishi dealership.

As far as bolt length and all, everyone, the mechanics at the auto-crafts shop that were helping me, said the same as the mechanic at the dealership; the bolt had to be cross-threaded when I had the timing belt replaced. Like I said, we tried everything: we had a 1/2" impact wrench, then removed some more stuff out the front and got a 3/4" impact wrench in there and it still didn't break free, breaker bar, extension pipe and sledge hammer and the engine just turned over. With my friend (who was a mechanic prior to the Army) plus the guys there at the auto-crafts shop, we tried everything.

I would like to fix this, if possible. I'm going back to Iraq in November and it was going to my oldest son, so he is heart broke. Everyone talks about the durability of these vehicles, before moving into Iraq, my assigned vehicle while in Kuwait was an identical Pajero and those stood up so much better than the other SUVs, especially the American made but even the Toyotas and Nissans that were there.

Thanks for all the comments, I'll let you guys know how it goes.
Doug

I would think the crank threads would be harder than the bolt threads. I bet that once the remainder of the bolt comes out, the crank threads will be fine.