diff --git a/tools/releasetools/common.py b/tools/releasetools/common.py
index 2f05d44..715802f 100644
--- a/tools/releasetools/common.py
+++ b/tools/releasetools/common.py
@@ -2797,6 +2797,18 @@
 def ZipWrite(zip_file, filename, arcname=None, perms=0o644,
              compress_type=None):
 
+  # http://b/18015246
+  # Python 2.7's zipfile implementation wrongly thinks that zip64 is required
+  # for files larger than 2GiB. We can work around this by adjusting their
+  # limit. Note that `zipfile.writestr()` will not work for strings larger than
+  # 2GiB. The Python interpreter sometimes rejects strings that large (though
+  # it isn't clear to me exactly what circumstances cause this).
+  # `zipfile.write()` must be used directly to work around this.
+  #
+  # This mess can be avoided if we port to python3.
+  saved_zip64_limit = zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT
+  zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT = (1 << 32) - 1
+
   if compress_type is None:
     compress_type = zip_file.compression
   if arcname is None:
@@ -2822,13 +2834,14 @@
   finally:
     os.chmod(filename, saved_stat.st_mode)
     os.utime(filename, (saved_stat.st_atime, saved_stat.st_mtime))
+    zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT = saved_zip64_limit
 
 
 def ZipWriteStr(zip_file, zinfo_or_arcname, data, perms=None,
                 compress_type=None):
   """Wrap zipfile.writestr() function to work around the zip64 limit.
 
-  Python's zip implementation won't allow writing a string
+  Even with the ZIP64_LIMIT workaround, it won't allow writing a string
   longer than 2GiB. It gives 'OverflowError: size does not fit in an int'
   when calling crc32(bytes).
 
@@ -2837,6 +2850,9 @@
   when we know the string won't be too long.
   """
 
+  saved_zip64_limit = zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT
+  zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT = (1 << 32) - 1
+
   if not isinstance(zinfo_or_arcname, zipfile.ZipInfo):
     zinfo = zipfile.ZipInfo(filename=zinfo_or_arcname)
     zinfo.compress_type = zip_file.compression
@@ -2869,6 +2885,7 @@
   zinfo.date_time = (2009, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0)
 
   zip_file.writestr(zinfo, data)
+  zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT = saved_zip64_limit
 
 
 def ZipDelete(zip_filename, entries, force=False):
@@ -2902,6 +2919,18 @@
   os.replace(new_zipfile, zip_filename)
 
 
+def ZipClose(zip_file):
+  # http://b/18015246
+  # zipfile also refers to ZIP64_LIMIT during close() when it writes out the
+  # central directory.
+  saved_zip64_limit = zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT
+  zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT = (1 << 32) - 1
+
+  zip_file.close()
+
+  zipfile.ZIP64_LIMIT = saved_zip64_limit
+
+
 class DeviceSpecificParams(object):
   module = None