Harmonic balancer puller?

[HottestZ28]

I recently did the opti spark and waterpump.I had a friend that worked for GM and he got me the Kentmore puller/installer for an LT1. I had alittle trouble putting the balancer back on and i have a feeling it is off alittle. Is there anyway to pull the balancer/hub assembly offwith out that puller. My friend is at college now and won't be home for a while.

[Mirroredshades]

NAPA in my area loans tools. Maybe you can get one from there. The puller I have only cost about $20 anyway.

Oh yeah, and I like putting Texas Pete on my Cobra.....

[Injuneer]

Just to make you feel even worse.... there is no need to remove the complete harmonic damper (it is not a "balancer") and hub to change the Opti. It can be done simply by removing the damper/pulley from the hub.

When you removed the hub, you may have noticed that although the crankshaft has a keyway in it, the damper hub does not, and hence there was no key to hold the damper in place. That is because the damper is not a balancer, and the exact postion on the crank is not critical. There is a popular "Rebuilding the LT1" article available online that indicates that only in cases of minor engine imbalance did the factory use the holes on the damper to try and smooth things out. In that case, you would find heavy metal plugs in some of the holes in the damper. The "cure" for an improperly installed damper, according to the article - as evidenced by engine vibration - would be to rotate the damper in 90-degree increments to find the smoothest position.

So..... unless you think there is a balance problem on the engine, the exact position is not important.

[HottestZ28]

I tried to pull just the puller for over and hour and found not to be moving, sparyed it and let it soak, still nothing. The whole motor just moved and not really anything to pry off of. I didn't know you can use just any puller to get it off. I was thinking that a regular puller would tear the pully off the dampner

[Kevin - Blown 95 TA]

Well, the hub covers most of the end of the driveshaft and if you try to pull against the hub itself, something will break, bend, or start cussing. You got to push against the bottom of the threaded hole in the crank snout or against a threaded rod in the threaded hole. Just make sure you are pulling against the crank and not the bottom of the hub! You can drop a high grade screw in there to push against if you don't have the 5/8 fine rod, otherwise buy a piece of threaded rod at the hardware store or more likely from Graingers and a couple nuts & washers and you got what you need to install it back on there too.

[Injuneer]

Why do you feel it is "off a little"? Did you check to see if the damper arrow was in the correct position when #1 was at TDC?

You are risking damage to the damper and the crankshaft, and it appears you haven't even taken the time to check to see if there is a problem.

Just curious why you are taking this approach, when it isn't a critical alignment issue.

[HottestZ28]

I had it at TDC #1 but the problem was that there is like 3 degrees of seperartion at TDC and when installing the hub is jumped even more, so when i started i felt like i was off but i thought it would be ok. I just felt that with it off alittle with the TDC and the hub that it would be off alot in the end