Wait...are you telling me that.....yeah, well, I guess you are.  Ah, the
old bolt-through-the-tranny trick.  Now that I've exposed my ignorance
to the entire international community I'll just hide here under this
rock for a bit.

Thanks to all, 
Drew

----Chris Dixon wrote:------
Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 6:40 PM
To: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com
Subject: Re: rasumfrasum Starter bolt!

Drew, I just did this yesterday.
Don't bother with the allen bolt. Follow the bolt from the starter thru
your
tranny to your motor -- it's about 6 inches long and is held on with a
regular
metric nut. You can get to the engine side of the bolt easily with a
regular
old socket wrench -- tho you'll probably have to take off your AFM and
throttle body (easy). I didn't even have to hold the allen bolt wth a
wrench to get
the nut off. I was surprised when I did this job that the big
maintenance book
suggested undoing the cv. I found this unecessary.
Chris Dixon

---------and Sam Walters wrote--------

For a number of jobs like this, I have had to use extensions between my 
ratchet and the socket so that the ratchet is positioned in a way that 
allows me to get torque and for it to rotate.  I think this is a two 
extension job IIRC.

I have never removed the AFM or throttle body to do this job, but it 
might make it easier.

While I have done this a few times by myself, it would be easier with a 
helper to hold the open end socket in place while you did the Allen from

below.

Sam

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Phillips, Andrew
Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 4:54 PM
To: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com
Subject: rasumfrasum Starter bolt!

I'm stuck here, and so is the remaining bolt on the starter.  I'm trying
to loosen the upper bolt -- the one that can only be reached from the
engine compartment -- that holds the starter to my '91 Westy.  There
isn't room for much of any sort of work.  I can get an 8 mm allen socket
into the bolt, but there's no room to put a ratchet on.  I can get an
open end wrench on the shaft, but the handle on an 8 mm is kinda teeny
to apply much torque, and the jaws of an adjustable wrench of suitable
length are far too large to seat well.  I'm sure there is  no room for a
percussion wrench.  Liberal amounts of Liquid Wrench and a little
tapping with a hammer have had no effect so far.
 
Have any of you had this problem and been able to solve it?
 
Your $0.02 greatly appreciated,
Drew Phillips