Harmonic Balancer Bolt Issue

[sonnychills]

Buddy of mine's LQ9 he was installing cam, seals and lower gaskets. He had followed the LS1howto on reinstalling the harmonic balancer and new bolt. He had reinstalled the harmonic balancer with the old bolt successfully when he realized he forgot to put in the front seal. Pulled the balancer back off, replaced the seal, and reinstalled the harmonic balancer again using the old bolt. When he was threading the old bolt out again to torque down the new one, when he got to the last thread, it started to spin freely, but would not come out. We tried to drill it to put a slide hammer on it, couldn't keep any bit from breaking as soon as they took a bite. Self tapping screws wouldn't do it. Vice grips and any type of leverage has been tried. I'm at the point of telling him he may have to take it to a machine shop to take care of this. Has anyone else encountered this before?

Video below

http://youtu.be/FcLNxbDyliw

[CHEVROLADE]

damm that sucks.always replace with a new bolt since the oem crank bolt gets stretched..mine did that too when i reused the old bolt but it came out.good luck hope u didnt mess up the crank threads

[sonnychills]

Yes I absolutely understand that you ALWAYS replace the stretch bolt. When you're trying to get the balancer back on, you use the old one first. This is where the issue lies.

What did you have to do to get yours out?

[Botlfed]

have you tried heating the bolt up????????

[sonnychills]

Yeah we put a blowtorch on it and tried to turn it out, didn't really change anything.

[CHEVROLADE]

i dont understand how it wont come out when its all loose like that lol sorry but i had that same issue and yea it sucks.

[skeet]

i cant see how he got to the last thread then the bolt started to turn freely but wouldnt come out? sounds like he screwed up somewhere else, if it was spinning on the last thread coming out it shouldnt a problem getting it out, apparently theres more to the issue. if he got that stock bolt hot ( using impack) more then likely he gaulded the threads on the bolt in hopes he didnt mess the crank threads up.

has he tried running the bolt back in? without force i hope. if possible put pressure behind the bolt and see if impacting it out will do it. maybe with a block of some sort and a prybar

[sonnychills]

i dont understand how it wont come out when its all loose like that lol sorry but i had that same issue and yea it sucks.

So how did you go about getting it out?

[sonnychills]

i cant see how he got to the last thread then the bolt started to turn freely but wouldnt come out? sounds like he screwed up somewhere else, if it was spinning on the last thread coming out it shouldnt a problem getting it out, apparently theres more to the issue. if he got that stock bolt hot ( using impack) more then likely he gaulded the threads on the bolt in hopes he didnt mess the crank threads up.

has he tried running the bolt back in? without force i hope. if possible put pressure behind the bolt and see if impacting it out will do it. maybe with a block of some sort and a prybar

We think its on the last thread. When he backed it off after putting the balancer on the second time, he said it was slightly tighter than the first time, like the bolt had become more firm inside the threads. We easily cranked it out with a ratchet until it became loose, then just tried to pull it out and it wouldn't come out. We tried to wrench it back in, we haven't tried the impact in fear of screwing up the threads in the crank.

[ezdaar]

Weld nut onto bolt head, attach slide hammer and yank it out. Then run tap in crank clean up threads..