Removing Balancer Bolt... Concerned

[JDGautreaux]

Well there seems to be a bitter sweet victory to the stall problem with my 95 Lesabre. In my last update I had elected to purchase a crank position sensor and had some trouble breaking the balancer bolt. After reading some tips I thought I was armed with the correct information to get her done. Well after some attempted tries to break the beast and some info from a local chevy dearlership I elected to try the pull bar/starter method as they so willingly offered. Lodge a pullbar with a pipe resting against the floor and the appropriate size socket on the balance bolt and hit the starter a couple of times. The only thing that I got out of the procedure was the understanding of exactly how much torque the starter can generate as the car almost raised off of the floor jack.

"Now what" I said... I had a friend who knew a friend who had a friend... you get the point... any who we got a 3/4 impact wrench, a 3/4 to 1/2 reducer to fit the 1/2 impact socket. Laws of physics prevailed, the weakest link in the equation broke. Thank goodness it was the 3/4 to 1/2 reducer.

Before attempting any additional attemps to remove this beast I elected to go the cheaper route and purchase the ignition control module. You probably thinking those things are around $160 compared to the $30 crank sensor. Well when you compare the expense to breaking the balancer bolt off and $160 to try to resolve the problem, I choose ICM and to my surprise it worked like a champ with no failure so for. Current outside temp was about 56f but I had failures at lower than this the other night.

Back to the balancer bolt... after closer inspection it appears that there is a red substance around and behind the head of the bolt, seems to be a type of RTV or silicon. Looks to thick to be red lock-tight (which I hope it's not). Has anyone ever heard of using something like this on this bolt and having this much trouble getting one of these things off?? I'm really concerned that one day I will need to remove the balancer and don't know which direction to go from here?

[JDGautreaux]

Broke down and brought it to a local Buick dealer. No codes what so ever when they scanned it. There recommendation is to change the crank sensor.

Got a call from the shop manager about hour after I dropped it off. Mechanic put a breaker bar on it and moved it a 1/4 of turn and the bolt still would not break loose. They a really concerned that this thing is going to break or the threads are stripping and will not be able to get the bolt out.

What are my options, I 'm still unsure that it is the crank position sensor. Do I exhaust all other options before proceeding with trying to remove the bolt.

If the bolt breaks, what are my options? Has anyone ever drilled and retapped this type of bolt? Can this be done in the car? I talked to a local machine shop and they can do it if I remove the engine from the car...

I'm freaking out to say the least.

[ChemMan]

It is my understanding that to remove something held in place by lock-tight you have to heat it with a torch. However, that may not be so practical or such a good idea considering where you are working on the car.