Tricks for timing belt change:

I thought that I should pass this along just in case not many people already discovered it. I was changing timing belt on my 91 740 turbo wagon with std. Trans. the past weekend. I was having difficulty finding a easy way to hold the crank shaft while trying to loosen the 1” bolt on the pulley. I heared that some people managed to hold the flywheel still from the starter motor opening. I thought that if I want to do it that way, I might have to remove a lot of things (starter, intake manifold maybe, etc.). After over 30 minutes just looking arround and under the car, I found that you can easily do this from under the engine. Remove the aluminum shield (or cover) from underneath the engine where it bolts to the clutch. It has 2 longer bolts horizontal, 3 shorter ones vertical. Now you see the flywheel. Along the edge of the flywheel (~1” from the edge of the teeth) there are some evenly spaced holes (7-10mm dia). Now look at the engine side of the flywheel housing roughly underneath the engine coolant draining plug, there is a good-sized hole (no idea what was intended for) almost exactly lines up with the holes on the flywheel. Insert a heavy-duty screw driver or something similar through the hole on the engine into one of the holes on the flywheel with your left hand and loosen the crank shaft bolt with a 1” socket and a breakbar (to get more advantage).

Or, you can just take the radiator and intercooler out and use an air wrench! (I think this is what I’, going to do next time.