2003 pt cruiser harmonic balancer refusing to budge

[garyd75]

ive tried 2 different pulley pullers. one was for Chrysler only from auto zone. nothing. the other pulley grabs from the outside and same thing nothing but a bent pulley. car is from up north and I see a tad bit of rust on the spacing between the pulley and the crank snout. I notice my pulley says made in china so I assume that's not original. it looks like someone used an impact to tighten the pulley bolt down.
what can I do to remove this pulley. I don't want to go any further with out advice. all I was trying to do was a timing belt swap

[03PTCrewser]

I can tell you from experience that pulling on the outside of the pulley will do nothing. When I finally got the right puller that grabs the inside it took a half inch drive impact wrench working at full potential to convince that pulley to come off. The tool was at its breaking point.

[VsandFords]

The correct puller is a must. You might try spraying it with something like SOK or PB Blaster.

[JoeX]

A little heat goes a long way.. Put pulling pressure on pulley and then add a little heat. Make sure your pushing on the inside of the crank and pulling from the holes in the harmonic balancer with the hook part toward the center or crank shaft. To replace shine up the crank with fine emery paper, remove any burs, same with your harmonic balancer.

[garyd75]

ive tried both the outer and inner pulley puller. I believe the inner pulley puller is the right one.
I think someone had the same problem as me with this car as the timing cover looks melted behind the pulley. just noticed that
im going to go get some pb blaster
ive sand crank once I get my emery cloth. ill need to buy a new pulley after this
il see if I have a propane torch and try that route
never in my life have I had a problem like this

[rsrocket1]

Mine came out smoothly but with a lot of torque a couple of weeks ago. I needed to wedge bolts between the jaws and the balancer in order to keep the jaws from slipping out. I used nothing more than a large 1/2" wrench but a breaker bar might help.

It was just a long steady set of turns that got it 3/4 out. I then had to remove the center peg from the puller bolt, partially thread the crankshaft bolt back in and use the puller bolt to push against the cranshaft bolt to get the balancer off that last bit.

[JoeX]

I never push against the loosened crankshaft bolt to avoid any chance of damaging the threads. The small black puller requires a pin about 1/4 inch dia to push against and another a little longer to remove the pulley all the way.

[rsrocket1]

The one that Autozone and OReilley loan out is the OEMTools 27139 and the longer rod shown in the picture is too short to fully pull out the balancer.

Be careful and test fit the rod in the bolt. The first one I got from Autozone was a very tight fit and got stuck in the bolt when I used it. They refunded me the loaner cost anyway. I then went to OReilley's and they gave me the same kit. That's when I had to resort to using the crankshaft bolt to get the last part of the balancer off the shaft.

[JoeX]

Same tool I used, but I made a longer push rod...

[Handy_Cruiser]

Think impact wrench.

Using an impact wrench makes this much easier. I've always found that the hammering motion of an impact wrench will often allow a puller to move a pulley when the direct torque of a hand wrench can break the puller.

Here's my rig to break the pulley loose.