Crankshaft pully bolt size for a Ram 5.7l hemi

Factual Questions
1

I’ve a 2004 Ram 1500 with the 5.7l hemi. I need to try to turn the engine a few degrees. It’s difficult to get to the crank pulley bolt, and I sure as hell can’t see it. Can barely get my hand to it. Barely. Blind mans bluff.

It’s gonna be a bitch.

Between the deep wells and short extensions, I should be able to get a breaker bar on it, but frankly, don’t know what size I’m looking at. I’m guessing about 3/4" ?

I’d like to know the exact size of course, and don’t want to jam things up with a 7/8" on a 3/4.

Google foo has been no help.

2

I just did a quick google search of all things Dodge truck and keep seeing 32mm or 1 1/4" for crankshaft pulley bolts on the 5.9l engine. I couldn’t find anything specifically for your 5.7 hemi but thinking it’s likely the same.

Hopefully someone else may know.

3

I can usually crank an engine using an alt bolt or other pulley bolt. I sometimes have to apply a little more presure on the belt.

4

That might be a good guess, but the 5.9 was the same block as the ancient 318 V8 from the 60’s whereas the 5.7L hemi was a new design around the turn of the 2000’s.

But, yeah, like HoneyBadgerDC said there’s no reason you need to use the balancer bolt. It just might be a good idea to re-check the torque of whichever bolt you do use.

Also, just out of curiosity, what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Probably the reason why the googlesphere doesn’t know the answer to your question is that I can’t think of a single reason why you would need to move the engine by hand on this engine.

5

I think I have a 1-1/4 socket. And I might try to wrench on the alternator with giving a belt some beef.

The truck is still in the snow, that is quickly turning the drive into mud. Just the way it is. The plow is still on it, but I could remove it with the tractor so I could possible do this from below.

And sorry folks this is a previous post from 2 weeks ago about the issue

The long and short of it is the starter is trying to engage the flywheel, but won’t catch. Turning the engine a degree or three may give me some info.

6

Ah, I see. I guess moving the engine is worth a try, but given that the problem seems to have developed after the truck was sitting for a while I’d suspect a bad solenoid is a lot more likely than broken teeth on the flywheel. Is the truck too mired to reach the starter? If you could listen near it while someone else turns the key, you should be able to hear the bendix engaging (or not.) A hearty whack with a wrench or mallet might also jostle it loose.

The Hemi is a pretty high compression V8 so it’s not all that surprising that it’s going to be hard to move by hand, especially with the clearance issues up front. If you can’t easily get it moved, I’d probably just go ahead and pull the starter. It looks like it’s pretty easy (assuming you can get under the truck at all) and once you’ve got it off, you can visually check whether the flywheel teeth are damaged or not.

7

Well, shoot. I did turn over the engine a few degrees with a wrench on the nut behind the fan in front of the water pump. Wrenching on the alternator just pulls on the belt tensioner. Was a bit surprised to find that the nut on the alternator was 13/16. Wow.

When I move the engine, the starter will roll the engine through 360 and then thunk. Move engine again, and starter moves it until “thunk”. Did this a few times.

This suggests to me that it’s the flywheel. Replacing a starter I would do. The flywheel? well, I’m not a kid anymore.

So, it sounds like it’s the flywheel to me. Any other ideas?

I’m guessing that to pull the transfer case and transmission and replace the flywheel on a 2004 Ram is going to be about $3000. Is that about right?

8

Follow up.

I started the job of removing the plow and tire chains last weekend to get the truck ready to be towed. As a just for the heck of it effort, I tried starting it again, and it fired right up.

To summarize -

A month ago I would only get a ‘clunk’ out of the starter flywheel engagement. I turned the engine by hand and the starter would roll the engine 360 degrees and stop. Then thunk. Rinse and repeat. Seemed there must be something wrong with the flywheel since it would stop after turning the engine 360 degrees. A few missing teeth is what I thought.

That still may be the case. Depending on where the engine stops.

But, at least I have been able to start it a number of times. I will be taking it in to the shop on Monday 7/6 to get it checked out.

Am really happy that I won’t have to have it towed. That’s never fun, especially where I live.

It just fired up 20 minutes ago. We will see if it fires up Monday morning.