Help with harmonic balancer removal

[kyle23]

Hello all long time lurker here and this is my first post. Im doing the water pump on my 97 Pathfinder and everything was going gravy until i got to removing the harmonic balancer. I got the puller tool from the parts store and the correct M6x1.0 bolts and when doing the initial pull I will admit I think I might have had it cockeyed or not lined up correctly as instead of the pulling the balancer off it went to one side and pulled one of the bolts right out! Now when I thread in the bolt it goes in ok initially and then at the end just gets super loose. I ran a M6x1.0 tap through and it didn't really change anything. So now I cant use the puller as the one bolt will not get tight and also I noticed as im tightening the bolt it seems to effect the lower timing cover and pushes it back until it gets loose then the cover pops forwards. Has anyone encountered this problem? If so how did you get around it? I am thinking of just retaping the hole with a slightly larger thread but im afraid i damaged something internally as it seems the bolt just makes contact with the cover. any advice is appreciated thanks!

[commodorehat]

Bummer. I’ve also seen folk be able to get it off with a more general gear puller like one of these ( not sure the size) https://a.co/d/8e4idf6

 harmonic is easier assuming the bolts work but this may get it in a bind

Edited June 18 by commodorehat

[zakzackzachary]

On 6/17/2024 at 9:38 PM, commodorehat said:

Bummer. I’ve also seen folk be able to get it off with a more general gear puller like one of these ( not sure the size) https://a.co/d/8e4idf6

 harmonic is easier assuming the bolts work but this may get it in a bind

 

I tried that puller the first time I did mine and it broke the harmonic balancer with those grabber claws. 

 

OP, can you maybe drill/tap the stripped out hole a size bigger? Might have to drill out the hole on your puller to fit a larger bolt.

[Strato_54]

3 hours ago, zakzackzachary said:

OP, can you maybe drill/tap the stripped out hole a size bigger? Might have to drill out the hole on your puller to fit a larger bolt.

 

Was going to say the same thing. If you use a larger bolt too it probably won't want to strip out as easy. A little heat won't hurt either just don't heat the crank only the pulley. I broke mine using a gear puller, these balencers are a very expensive mistake.