1992 Mitsubishi Expo AWD Auto 2.4L. 130K miles. While replacing the water pump, I noticed the remains of the balance shaft belt laying in the bottom of the timing belt cover. I guess it's not very important, but I figure I might as well change it and the timing belt since I've come this far. I can see no way of getting the balance shaft belt on without removing the crankshaft pulley. But the crank bolt is really stuck. I grabbed the pulley with a big 'ol pipe wrench and tried turning the bolt both ways, but it won't budge. Before I really put the torque on it, I would like to confirm if the crank bolt is a right or left hand thread?

Also, are there any tricks to lining up the pulleys (balance, crank, cam and oil shafts, or just put all the pulleys on their marks and tighten the tensioners?

Thanks in advance, Mark.

 

Well, it turns out the crank bolt is a right hand thread (counter intuitive since the engine rotates clockwise when looking at the front pulleys you might think the bolt would have left hand threads), but it's really in there and takes a lot of torque (and liquid wrench and an 18" breakover bar and a 24" pipe wrench in my case) to get it loose.

After that I just lined up all the timing marks (the cam was the hardest to see) and it went right together and fired right up (after a few turns by hand to make sure the valves didn't hit the pistons). I did have to remove the crank pulley to get the balance shaft belt on. No way would it fit between the case and the crank pulley washer.

If anyone knows where I could find a factory service manual for this engine, I'd be interested. It's a really nice engine to work on.