Do you use a gear puller to remove crank balancer?

No
once the bolt is removed you should be able to slide it off

A gear puller could seperate the balancer and ruin it

 

Not on mine. It will NOT COME OFF. It is frozen on there after 20+ years of neglect.

A gear-puller is the ONLY way to do it without damage at this point. I am just going to buy one from Bosch this week.



The 1981 GTSi Parts Manual shows it as a single piece. There is no division (it is all one part) where the arrows are in the pic posted by the OP (It could be a drawing error though, as the manuals DO CONTAIN lots of them). However, the Parts Manual shows that what is behide it, is a gear that appearantly drives the two lower belt-drive gears next to it, but of that I am NOT 100% sure.



I have to get both(?)/whole single unit off (NOT THE gear behind that pully/damper, however), to change out the belt drive gears to a modified plated version that will not rust and cause early undue wear to the belt and has a welded fence that the unmodded OEM parts do not.




I have asked one of our professional experts to chime-in on this thread. He likely will shortly. Let's see what he has to say.

 

Use a puller and replace the balancer with a new one. Be sure to clean the crank and sand with 1000grit paper to smooth before installing new.

If new one won't slip on, then prep the crank more.

 

If you want to try to remove it and re-use, then put a length of metal behind it and pull the metal, thus pulling the whole of the balancer.

 

For $2,500.00?


Uh ....... NOooooooo?

 

I have a spare balancer if anyone is in need. Good luck with the pulls!

 

Have you ever removed one of these units?
Do you have any idea what these units cost?
Any idea of the possible balance issues?
Given any real thought to advising someone to use sandpaper on the end of the crankshaft?


Or do you just make this stuff up as you go?

 

Let me know how it turns out

 

Wish I could be of help here but mine came off with only a slight tug. I am surprised that one of those "In the know" haven't chimed in. You might want to post in the Tech section and see if one of the regulars has an idea. Perhaps Fastradio has some ideas of the right way to do it.

Cheers

 

Is there a way you can sneak a (or 2) piece of steel between the back of the HB and the front of the block? What I'm thinking is to have something to transfer the pulling force to the back of the hub. Please excuse the crude drawing -- I hope you get the gist of what I'm talking about.
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Come on Gregg! We're ALL "experts" here in the 3x8 section!

 

NOT I ........ BUT I am working on it.


I figure in about 20 years ...........

 

Just used a gear puller on METAL, NOT on the rubber.

The damper just came right off. Did not use ANY MUSCLE either. The leverage of the socket wrench was all that was needed. Just the dead weight of my hand was sufficient weight to tighten the puller. IT WAS EASY, REAL EASY. Did NOT MAR a thing with the puller.

I believe that the damper was "glued" to the crank by 30 years worth of old grease. Once the vacuum seal was broken, it came right off.


One happy camper here. Now off to DH for refinishing.

Next up, changing out the lower cam belt drive gears.

 

Please listen to these wise words, this man knows what he is talking about, too many people on this site say some very scary stuff, you have been worned !!!

 

Dave,

Were hese balanced for each specific engine or are the interchangeable.

Thanks,

Rob

 

if you are rebuilding an engine, you balance the crankshaft, the flywheel, and the damper pulley as a unit. Then you put on weight matched sets of pistons and pins.

if you are replacng the damper by itself, then there is no way to disassemble the engine just for balancing again.

 

Lots of issues here. I went through all this a year ago and should warn that there is a good opportunity to ruin the crankshaft, never mind the damper.
To get the damper off the idea proposed by flyngti seems as good as anything. When it is off clean the shaft and bore of the damper and get them measured. It should be a light drive fit. If it is not there is an opportunity for the damper to fret on the crank shaft. You will probably not hear it, or notice anything wrong until it has wrecked the end of the crankshaft.
Fit a new key and note the torque setting of 20KgM. That's pretty tight. I believe there is also a service note to apply loctite to the thread.
What it does. The crankshaft damper acts to reduce torsional vibrations within the crankshaft. Its quite right that the damper would normally be balanced as a group with the crank and flywheel, but in my experience the out of balance difference from one damper to another is much less than that between clutch pressure plates and most people don't balance those.

 

When I rebuilt the engine on my series one GT4 I was expecting a fight to undo the nut and get the damper off. When I got to it the nut undid easy and the damper came off. Bad news.
Worse, there was a lot of bright red rust visible on the crank section, a sure sign of fretting. The good news was that the key only showed a small witness line and the key slot in both parts looked good. Having cleaned them up I took the parts to the shop that was doing the bore hone and crank grind and had the bits measured. We decided that the hole in the damper was now about 2 thou too large. To fix this I took the damper to an electro plater that offered electroless nickel plating. This is a smooth hard surface that deposits evenly all over an object including inside holes. It also deposits at a constant rate of a few microns per hour. I worked out that six and a half hours would be just right. The guy either forgot, or thought he was doing me a favour and left it in the bath for eight hours. As a result it was too tight, but the machine shop soon honed it out half a thou to a nice firm fit. Sorry I don't have the exact dimensions to hand, but the important thing is to match the bore of the damper to the crank. Your good machine shop should advise.
The car has done 4000 miles since including lots of maximum revs in competition.

 

I will be balancing my;
308 2V Main shaft, drive gear, New chromoly flywheel, rebuilt pressure plate and New Aluminum (3 lb) pulley together.
( Note; If this is done, you don't need a Harmonic Balancer.)

See my super-hard anodized front pulley, and an extra that could be yours cheap.

Edwardo
PM me.

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