Hi, I'm trying to pull my 3.8 out of my 2010 JKU. I got the two bottom 18mm bolts out. The other 4 are stuck. I can get to them but nothing I'm trying is breaking them free. Ive hit them with everything from two 1/2 impact guns. One rated for 700 lbs and the other one 1400 lbs.I live in the southwest so I don't think rust is the issue. Has anyone else had these issues?

 

Get a welding cutting torch. Heat them up but don't cut with oxygen - just use the immense heat from a cutting torch to heat them fast almost to red hot. then hit them with cold water while they are what is referred to as straw colour. The cooling shock should loosen them. Replace the bolts when you re-install and use a liberal coting of never-sieze on all bolts.

 

Thats a great idea but 3 of the four bolts are super close to the wiring harness. One of those three is burried under the wiring harness.

 

I built a plane and when I got the engine back from rebuilder I needed to remove a plug for the propellor governor. It was a steel plug in an aluminum housing. Was a bitch to get undone so I got my pneumatic rivet gun on it and gave it a 10 second burst. Plug came undone. So some sort of impact on them may help. But at least get the heat on the one bolt you can get at and see if my idea would help. Can you not move the harness out of the way? Also the Barry way if you can get a wrench or socket straight on is a long pipe on the handle of the wrench or ratchet. They always come undone!! Never broken a wrench or ratchet yet doing that.

 

I ended up removing the heads so I could get to the top bellhousing bolts, then just used a lot of BFFE (Brute Force and F*cking Ignorance) to get them out, but after enough cursing, they all let go.
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Amazing how cursing makes the difference between go and no go isn't it.

 

I got the bolts out using a stubby 18mm socket (Amazon) along with a 1/2" drive swivel headed long handled ratchet (Harbor Freight) I also used various extensions.

 

 

I had a hell of a time getting the top bolts out of the bell housing.
I ended up using a box wrench to fit in the tight space, and the longest cheater pipe I could find.
that turned out to be some aluminum tube I had left over from making some railing on my boat.

I bent the fk out of the pipe, but the bolts broke loose.
the rest I used my impact that's fed by some pretty good air flow, and I still had to keep the swivels as straight as possible in order to get enough oomph to break those bolts loose.