Had a real difficult time locking the flywheel on a 1991 190E 2.6L to remove the front crack bolt, the starter is really difficult to remove with the upper bolt needing a 2 foot ratchet extension, the sanstagtool.com site sells the locking bracket for $185 so I bypassed this expense, glad to hear that there is a tool sharing program at this site.

I made my own flywheel locking tool or rather a combination of tools. Several DIY suggested placing a screwdriver into the starting ring behind the plastic flywheel cover. Well, no one screwdriver would stay put when the magnitude of the crank bolt breaking torque that was in play. Pinning/gripping a lone screwdriver was also unsuccessful, possibly because once the driver moved to touch the xmission case, the driver was not that snug under the one flywheel tooth.

I used from left to right facing the openning at the xmission housing: 1st a skinny 6" screwdriver small enough to fit under one tooth, 2nd a fat cold dice ground at the point to fit snuggly ( could not turn on its axis) under one ring gear tooth, 3rd a 6" nail set (smaller in diameter than the screwdriver) which fit loosely under a 3rd tooth, and last a visegrip to grab and hold in place the above three. Each metal object was pinned under one tooth and although 2 of the 3 were small in diameter and loose the locking visegrip made the set of three snug.

The hydraulic jack was used to leverage the 2 foot long 1/2"-drive bar and loosen the crank bolt. The nail set on the third tooth, the front tooth as the starting ring moved CCW, and was bent at the end when wedged against the bell housing, but since it's diameter is much smaller than the tooth, it was easily hammered out using the visegrip. The nail set was bent a little and got stuck such that it could not be pulled out by hand.

I have some photos and will load them when I get a chance.

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Robert Illan
1991 190E 2.6L 190Kmi
engine tear down