Front Main Seals

[nickvash0104]

Okay, question number two... I guess I should have posted the first and second together since they're both being worked on during my replacement.

My issue is that I suspect both front main seals are blown. The other day, I added a full 5 qts of oil, drove 10 mi. to work, and found that I had no oil left whatsoever. Upon removing the timing cover, oil is everywhere, especially so around the seals. However, I can't seem to get the seals off. Any tips for removal? Is there really any other way to do this other than the SSTs? I believe TSRM says for the oil pump gear seal to use a knife and cut off the tip then use a screwdriver... and then for the crank seal, to use the SST... I'm trying to avoid that. To get the harmonic balancer off, I put a torque wrench on the bolt and levered it against the frame and cranked the engine for a moment to loosen it, then took it the rest of the way off manually. A tool from Autozone that I rented then got the balancer itself off. Ideas?