It Happened! You know what I'm talking about...

[Bottomfeeder]

Doing some general maintenance to the 95SR.
My business partner and I have a mechanic who works out of our shop so he does some of the dirtier work on my vehicles. While replacing the starter and alternator we went ahead and pulled the radiator to have rodded and sealed since it had to come out to make alternator installation easier. Changed all the belts too. I told Robert, the mechanic, i would order a new crank bolt since everything is off the front of the motor. Everything was moving along and Robert starts to remove the existing crank bolt... POW!... It snapped... So he's going in this weekend to do the extraction.
Once this is all done I can start on the front suspension.

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

At least it didn't happen out on the trail, but... It blows my mind that these are happening with increased frequency. The first and second generation bolts have been installed for many years and we didn't hear too much about it, but nowadays it seems like we're reading about a couple breaking every month.

I hope he's able to get the bolt out without trashing the threads - that seems to be about 50-50. If you need my Time-Sert kit, let me know. HoseB's 90 SWB seemed to need it, but the chucklehead mechanic who was working on it said he wasn't able to drill out the hole with any drill bit known to man, including the one supplied with the kit. (It worked on my 95, no problem) He said the crank was hardened and it couldn't be done, so he ran the new bolt in with paint on it to check what was left of the threads, took it back out and cleaned everything up and loc-tited the new bolt and put it in. Since he got the 135 lbs on it, it "should" hold.

His 89 SWB that he just picked up has its harmonic balancer welded on. Before he bought it, I checked the bolt and was quite surprised to find that there wasn't one! As long as his front main seal doesn't give way, I guess it'll do, but what a hack job... At least he only paid $400, a used up 32" LCD TV and a Go-Quad go kart that "almost" ran. We drove that one home from Goodyear and he's in the process of cleaning it up. Seems O.K.

At least you have the ol' reliable Galaxie.

John B.