harmonic balancer

[mrnickleye]

Do you mean you need to put another one on?

remove the coil wire(s)

remove the belts.

remove the fan and shroud.

Place the 19mm x 1/2"dr socket onto the 1/2"dr breaker bar

-secure the socket to crankshaft pulley bolt, and position bar to ground or frame (solid) so that you can "bump" the starter to break loose the bolt.

-from inside the car (nobody standing near front, just in case), attempt to start the car for one quick second...this will cause the crank to turn and break loose the bolt.

-remove the crank bolt (probably finger tight now)

carefully, from opposite sides, pry evenly on the crank pulley till it moves a bit. Then pull a tiny bit on one, then the other bar, walking the pulley off the crank.

be careful, and ready to finish pulling it off with your hands. It is heavy, and will drop to the ground if your not ready. (put a folded towel on ground underneath, just in case)

Reverse this to install new pully.

Tightening bolt is biggest trouble. I personally use a 3/8" impact gun with an impact swivel socket to get on the bolt. I only 'hit' it for a second.

Maybe you have a friend with one. Holding the crank tight to torque it with a torque wrench can be very challenging. Perhaps someone will give that up.

[IHateHacks]

Don't use the starter bump method because the problem comes when its time to put the crank pulley back on and TORQUE the 19mm crank bolt. Hitting it with an impact gun for a second is not good. Personally, I would never "torque" my crank bolt with an impact, but if I did, I would lay on that sucker for a couple minutes straight. You will never hit 195ft/lbs on the crank bolt with an impact gun. Most impact guns have a tough time getting lug nuts off that are usually torqued under 100ft/lbs.

And don't even get me started on what happens if that crank pulley bolt is not properly torqued. Can you say Crank Cancer? Ask ddmcse what I'm talking about, he'll tell you.

Do what I did, take the starter out and wedge a prybar in the flywheel teeth to get it off and on. You can easily torque the crank bolt with a torque wrench while holding the flywheel yourself, well I did. Getting it off will require 2 people, one on the flywheel and one on the crank bolt with a 3 ft breaker bar.

[Randy87]

GREAT... Thanks to ALL for the answers about the harmonic balancer. I just was not sure if it was "fixed" to the timming chain/belt or moving any other component inside of the engine. I've previously done it on a 4.3 L. Vortec engine (different horse, no doubt about it.)

[mrnickleye]

Well, each to his own. But......When I worked at the Toyota dealer for 4+ years, I have only removed 150+ crank bolts, and installed them, with the method I described. (with NO "comebacks")

And yes, a second was really 3-4 seconds on the impact gun.