on seeing the light
Had an (all too rare) moment of insight last night while working on the Supra.
Replaced the water pump yesterday. This is one of the (few) aspects of Toyota engineering I’m not too fond of, and I’m sure they had their reasons, but in order to replace the water pump on a JZ-series engine, the front pulley, timing belt, and even the timing belt tensioner must be removed–the pump just tucks in behind everything on the front of the engine. So last night I was bolting everything back together, and the time came to torque the main pulley bolt something fierce–the spec is somewhere around 175 ft-lbs. I have my trusty 1/2 in. drive torque wrench for this and other suspension-related fasteners, but the trick as far as the front pulley is blocking the engine in order to be able to torque the bolt down. In most cases I would just remove the starter and wedge a hefty screwdriver in the flywheel teeth, but in this case the starter was inaccessible. The car is awaiting installation of the diff (4.10 Torsen LSD–yay), so the driveshaft is hanging free, and I decided to block the driveshaft yoke against the underside of the car to prevent it from turning. Problem was, every time I tried to put any sort of torque on the front bolt, the bar blocking the driveshaft would work its way loose. I had the car in first gear, and then it occured to me–the torque I put on the pulley bolt is being multiplied through the tranny, causing substantially more force on the driveshaft block than I’m applying. So I hopped in, put the car in fifth so there would be a torque reduction through the tranny (overdrive), and clicked the bolt down to 175 ft-lbs without breaking a sweat.
Finished rewiring the harness (again). Should start this afternoon if all goes well. Wish me luck.