Crank pulley removal, allen bolts worn, try center nut?

Hi all,
I am trying to remove the crank pulley so I can remove the lower timing belt cover and then the timing belt itself. A combination of rust and crud in the heads of the allen bolts means the allen socket has no purchase and the 4 allen bolts are not for shifting   The haynes manual does not mention the allen bolts and says to remove the crank pulley by undoing the 1 center nut, is this correct  :dontknow:  I gather this nut will take some shifting but at least I can get a better grip on it than the allen bolts.

Any help appreciated.

Dhillon
83' Gti

Yes the 4 Allen headed bolts are hard to remove.

Yes the centre crank bolt is very FT

See this and try some of the techniques and tricks. If you still can't remove the 4 then try the centre;

http://www.vwgolfmk1.org.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=53747#53747

When I had a Polo Diesel VW themselves made a mess of this when changing the timing belt. They ended uphaving to removed the crank pully and replacing all 4 bolts, pulley etc and charged me. This was on a car just a few years old. That chance have DIYers at home on one 20+….  :cry: not one of VWs best designs

Thanks for the link Early-1800  :wink:  I soaked the allen bolts in WD40 and left them to sit overnight, then soaked them again this morning.  Will have another try at removing this afternoon  :roll:  They are not quite rounded yet so will clean and dry the heads before going at them with a allen socket and wrench, if still no good will get out the impact wrench and hammer  :twisted:

As the engine is out of the car I have plenty of room to work on it. Just enough room to get a good swing at the bolts with a sledge hammer, the bolts may even decide to pop out themselves (looking all sheepish) when they see me returning with the sledge hammer.

RESULT! the bolts are out. I throughly cleaned out each bolt head before inserting a standard allen socket tapped home with a hammer. I then pushed an impact driver on to the allen socket and hit with a hammer. Having visited each bolt with the impact driver I then swapped the impact driver for a standard ratchet (without breaker bar). Using the open palm of my hand I hit the end of the ratchet to snap each bolt free! This worked a treat on three of the bolts but the fourth was way rounded. For the rounded bolt I used an over sized torx socket which I hammered into place with a hammer, once fully seated I put an impact driver on the end of the socket and hammered the bolt free.

The impact driver is a great tool to help free bolts and screws, not forgetting the WD40 of course.

Adios  :wink: