Removing a stuck flywheel

[Jens]

Are there any tricks one could use or is building a custom puller the only option ?

Note that we are talking about the flywheel and not the key (which was pulled fine)

I have tried soaking in penetrating oil, I have tried sticking a pipe over the crankshaft to contact the wheel and applying some shock loading but no cigar

I tried sticking a 2*4 into the crankcase and turning the wheel back and forth against this 'stop' but that didn't help.

The second side was also stuck but it released fairly quickly. Both wheels used to move fine on the crank but the stuck wheel is close to the cooling system and may have some rust between the crank and the wheel hub.

[vdubnut62]

Mix half automatic tranny fluid with half acetone for some awesome penetrating oil. You can literally see the stuff "crawling".
Other than that, heat is about the only choice and that's not a good option with flywheels.
Do you have access to a 20 ton press? I'm assuming that the crank will come out of the crankcase?
Ron

[Ian]

Jens - the stuck flywheel is likely congealed veg oil which has managed to form a capilliary film between the wheel and shaft before polymerising as a very strong adhesive. Unlikely that any penetrating oils will work....

If this is the case, use the traditional farmers "in the field" trick. Car jack against the crankshaft end and chains around the flywheel hub. Jack until something gives. Use a very strong jack - not one of the pressed steel jobbies - hydraulic is best. It is likely that you will have to jack the wheel off the shaft as, if it is polymerised WVO, simply getting it to move in the first place will not allow easy removal thereafter.

Once the wheel is off and cleaned up - when you return the wheel to the shaft, fill the hub void with lots of HMP grease. This will not stop the problem next time but will reduce its impact and make the next removal slightly easier.

Hope this helps
Regards,
Ian

[Ian]

Whilst I now consider my engine to be a "working" engine rather than something I polish on a Sunday afternoon – there was a time when I tried to have my engine as a working engine but thought of it as a "Sunday afternoon polisher"; something to be proud of.
There came a time when I wanted to remove a gib key for the first time.  Being a reasonably technical person, understanding mechanical principles, and having a pretty good supply of tools, I set about the gib key with a selection of pullers – probably about 4 or 5 of them. No joy. The gib key did not move and I probably destroyed a couple of pullers in the process.
So I purchased a proper gib key puller – designed for the job. It bent the puller and left the gib key in the same place.
So I purchased a 10 inch 3 leg hydraulic puller at quite a high cost (probably £100 for the puller to remove a £3 gib key).  The hydraulic puller was rated at 20 tonne. The gib key stayed in place and one of the puller legs became doglegged and pretty much useless for future use.
Luckily, I live next to a farmer who I get on with pretty well. I told him of my problem and he accused me of being girly and a wimp; he would come across after he had had a brew and sort it out for me.
He appeared with a couple of wedges that looked like they were 200 years old and normally reside at the base of the dung heap. In his other hand he had a heavy hammer with a handle that had seen much better days. I reckon the wedges and hammer could have been purchased for £1 at an auto jumble sale.
When he started to use the hammer on the wedges, the flywheel rang like a bell and my lip started to quiver. He looked up and saw the look on my face and said "Well, you either want the gib key out or you don't – you decide what you want!" I told him to go ahead but my lip was still quivering...
After about a dozen hammer blows the key started to move and about 40 seconds after he started, the key was out. He had managed to get the key out (intact) in less than a minute and at no expenditure. I had prated about with pullers for weeks and spent and messed up about £300 worth of tools.
At another time, I had to replace a TRB. I used what was left of my puller collection without any movement whatsoever. Clearly I had not learned my lesson as I then purchased a huge 60 tonne 3 leg long reach hydraulic puller. The claw of the legs would not fit behind the TRB race and the crank mounted gear wheel and was useless for the task – but it did fit behind the race on the other side. But it still did not move the TRB race.
Again, I saw my farmer friend and once again he questioned my sex and why I was prating about. His bet me he could get the TRB race off in less than 5 minutes and probably less than 1; I took him up on the offer.
He demanded that I take the crank across to his workshop – only about 50 metres but still far enough to have me puffing when I got there and delivered it. He attacked it with an angle grinder for about 10 seconds and then used the same hammer as he had used to get the gib key off and a cold chisel. ONE sharp strike with the chisel and the race simply fell apart and landed at his feet.
He said "There, I have shown you how to do it – now you do the other one". I tried to resist – but he is a farmer and knows how to apply pressure and get his way. My hands were shaking as I used the angle grinder and tickled the TRB race. He mimed a much more aggressive thrusting action at me. I applied a bit more pressure and generated a few more sparks. I also slipped and ground away a bit of the crank in the process but, NOW, I recognise that this is not very important although at the time I was mortified..... Then I tickled the TRB race with the chisel and nothing happened. He again gestured to me a more aggressive approach and I hit the chisel a bit harder. This time the race visibly cracked and one more hit and the race was on the floor. I am sure there was a very wide smile on my face and I felt very proud (and at the same time stupid that I had gouged the crank when I slipped with the angle grinder).
He also showed me the jack trick to remove the stuck flywheel and probably many other tricks that I cannot recall whilst I write this.
I feel very lucky that this farmer has taken the time to show me how to do these things. I would never have been able to do any of these tasks on my own and these tricks do not appear in any manuals or books. I have since removed gib keys, flywheels, and TRBs using the same techniques and without help or recourse to expensive equipment.
In the end, brute force (without ignorance) CAN get the job done and it often costs nothing and is incredibly quick. Brute force is not wrong if correctly applied. BUT you need to get into the mindset that the engine you are working on is not an object of beauty which needs to be polished and cleaned but instead the engine is designed to work and you need to do whatever it is you need to do in order to get it working again.
I hope this helps someone to have the courage and the correct mindset.
Go for it Jens......

Regards,
Ian

[Ian]

Hmmmmn.... methinks you are still thinking the engine is for polishing.....

Of course you should do what you feel comfortable with doing and not what others say you should do.

The guys that made the parts for your engine and the guys that assembled it were on peace work and did not bother about how pretty any of it was. The parts were treated with no respect and ended up with burrs and dings all over them – including the parts with critical surface finishes. Despite this the engine has still managed to run OK in the past.

In my opinion, if you want to mark a cast iron or bronze gear with a scriber it will be quite OK. I do recall hearing assumptions that punched marks created stress and premature failure but I also think I recall that this theory was later pulled.

Whenever I have marked something for timing purposes, I have found that I spend a massive amount of time trying to get the timing marks together again on reassembly and finding that they do not coincide perfectly. I waste an inordinate amount of time.

Going back to my farmer friend – he showed me that the best way to time a diesel is to ignore any timing marks already there and just work to basic principles. Assemble the engine and place a piston at TDC. Assemble the cam so that the inlet and exhaust valve are both open at this point; this will become TDC on the non firing stroke of this cylinder. That is it – the other cylinder must follow.

Before I used this basic principles technique, I would use the timing marks that I had made and spend a lot of time, a lot of cussing, and a lot of scraped knuckles and maybe it would be right or maybe it would be one tooth out. The problem with these large slow speed engines is that they run OK with valve and injector timing wildly out. If you know what you are hearing, you can hear that the engine is off tune but it will still perform OK without mishap. But of course, by the time you hear that the timing is not perfect, you have already assembled the engine (and probably polished it a bit too......) and have to take it apart again in order to fix it. OK, on a Lister this is simply opening up the crankcase cover and drift the idler pin out (whilst fishing around in the oil-filled sump to catch the bits you drop), and rotating the cam or crank either way before assembling again. It really is not a big deal and after you have done it once or twice you will not even have to think about it.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Ian

[Crumpite]

Wonderful story, Ian !

There is a guy out our way who fixes anything you bring to him (we're all farmers out where I live.)
I've seen him do many things like you've just described - I've learned a lot from him.
He's made an excellent living for many years doing repairs for the locals.

It's wonderful that folks like that still exist in this world !

Crumpite