Crank shaft pulley bolt

[Retro Pedro]

Just a little heads up on a crank shaft pulley bolt on all motors.
All very obvious after the event, but I'm reflecting on the damage I could have done for the sake of £2.
To say I've been struggling with the removal of the crank shaft pulley bolt on my Fiat Doblo 1.9 is an understatement. In the past I've done the same procedure on Fronty 2.8 diesel on two separate motors, 2.2 petrol and on all occasions have employed the impact socket on a breaker and then crank the engine and it's worked a treat. Because of past experience, my mind set was that I was going down the right road. Tried all sorts of tricks with the flywheel locked up using 3/4" drive sockets and scaffold pole, jacks under breaker bars, lump hammer etc. Last Saturday I thought sod it, the winch is going to be hooked up and give it a tug. What stopped me was that I was on my own in the lock up, and if I pulled the Doblo off the axles stands there could be severe consequences.
It had crossed my mind that it might be a left hand thread and I had even given it a tug that way. Heard about the advise that sometimes it's worth trying to initially tighten on further with the hope of cracking prior to undoing. Obviously, I didn't pull hard enough. That evening I put a post up on a Fiat forum requesting if anybody could confirm if the crank shaft bolt was left or right hand threaded. Fella responded with a Fiat technical sheet and indeed it states that it's LEFT hand threaded.
So next move as been to order a new bolt from main stealers, purely for insurance purposes so that I'm 200% to pull in the right direction. As stated above, this bolt as cost me £2. When I reflect what would have snapped if I had put the winch power on it and how it could have been potentially alot more than £2.
Where I'm really going to with this post, that in future, if I'm ever blessed with doing the crank shaft bolt removal on a motor I'm not sure about, reckon first port of call will be a new bolt from stealers for insurance purposes.
Incidently, I couldn't see the logic of a bolt undoing in the same direction as the pulling force being applied, i.e. bolt removal being anti clockwise and the engine turning the same way. Looked it up on wiki and apparently it's to do with stress factors.

[Mr Mud]