I had a helper with me and we used a pry bar and some wood to hold the wrench from behind but I couldn’t even get the wrench on the bolt. It’s hard for me to say for sure as I can’t really see down there with the wrench in the way but it seems like the wrench head is too fat and the bulge in the bell housing prevents it from going on. I even had someone try to get the wrench on from the top while I stuck a piece of wood from below to push it on but we still couldn’t get it on. I can get a socket to seat on it with a flex head ratchet but with the angle and/or the roundness of the bolt it slips right off when I apply any torque. I have also applied heat to it numerous times with a propane torch. Greg’s socket looks great though—I’m going to give that a try. If that doesn’t do the trick then worst case I’ll have an engine pull in my future and a handy little socket in my collection.

 

These are what I've used on upper bell housing and they've worked brilliantly. I couldn't' imagine doing it with anything else.

In your case Greg is correct.. maybe a 6 point would be ideal but something thin and low profile like the mountain wrenches. Best of luck!

 

This Is the correct tool. The radius of the upper bell housing will prevent the flexible ratchet head from fully seating using a normal flexhead.

 

please post a picture of the offending stripped bolt head

 

Here is a pic of it from below.

 

Thanks! I didn't even know that these type of wrenches existed before this whole endeavor. I guess that the geometry of my 84's bellhousing must have been different from the S4 bellhousing because with the 84 I just slipped a normal flex head gearwrench on the same bolt and it came off in seconds.

 

That is an interesting point. I'm not sure about this, but not all upper bell housing are the same. I've taken to removing material around the bell housing hole once the bolts are out to let the wrench heads fully seat.

 

So to wrap this story up, I was able to borrow the socket that Greg described from someone locally and the bolt came off in about a minute. All thanks to Greg for that awesome suggestion! Everyone who contemplates this job should get one of these sockets from him. If I had this at the beginning it would've saved me a TON of time.

 

Don't forget to buy a new one!