Let me give all of you some background on my problem, then I'd like some suggestions. If you say I need to yank the motor, THEN I'll blow my brains out...Here goes...
Went out one morning to fire up my '78 T/A and nothing happened. The carb had been running crappy for a long time, so I figured it was time to get a new one. I get one ordered. While waiting for the carb, I figure it's a good time to fix the water leak around the timing cover.
I proceed to fix the leak.
Upon putting the balancer bolt back on, I notice something strange. It was not a 15/16 bolt (actually I noticed it when taking it off, but just shrugged it off). Went to torque to 160 ft/lbs and it slipped at around 100. Pulled the bolt out and the threads were galled on the bolt.
To make a long story short, the bolt was very odd size of 18mm fine thread. I figure some lazy mechanic in the '80s stripped the threads and this was the next tap size. It took me a week to find a replacement bolt. It worked and the balancer torqued to 160. Yeah!!! - Not so fast...there's more.
My carb comes, I bolt it on, and the car won't fire. After compression checks and some troubleshooting, the cam is bad. So I proceed to fix this problem. Get the replacement cam in, test compression on all cylinders and they are right on. Put the front of the motor back on, go to torque the only metric hunk 'o metal on this car and...doh! No dice. This time the bolt slips again.
I haven't verified this, but I'm pretty sure the threads in the crank are galled.
Anyone dealt with this before? Is there a way to fix the threads without yankin the motor?
Help!!!
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