I was driving down the freeway the other day and lost power steering and battery light came on. Pulled over and saw the main belt had come off.. crankshaft pulley / harmonic balancer was wobbling all over the place. Got the car towed to my Grandpa's shop and took mostly everything apart. 

 

Does anyone have tips for removing this crankshaft sprocket? The woodruff key I believe broke in half and part of it is still on the crankshaft. We have tried almost everything in the book to get the crankshaft sprocket / gear off and it won't budge. 

 

This type of thing is a little bit out of my ballpark maintenance wise however I have a mechanic coming on Monday to check it out. If anyone has some tips on how we can get this sprocket off so we can check out the rest of the crank to make sure it's ok I would very much appreciate it.

 

Thank you

 

 

 

Tap threads into the holes in the sprocket and use a harmonic balancer/steering wheel puller to pull it off.

 

When you install the new sprocket and crank pulley, torque the crank bolt to about 140 ftlbs.

Edited February 21, 201610 yr by Fairtax4me

@Sooberoo

 

Thanks for the reply. That is what we are planning to do on Monday. Wanted to see if anyone else had thoughts or advice in the meantime.

 

Do you think that part of the woodruff key being stuck in there is a big issue? We are afraid / don't want to inflict any more damage to the end of the crankshaft.

Nope. The key is fairly soft steel. It won't hurt it anymore than what's already been done. Once the sprocket is removed youll be able to pop the key out.

 

Take the undamaged section to Napa and buy a new peice of key stock that matches in size.

tazorak,

 

I would flood that shaft with PB Blaster or 3 in 1 Oil or similar to break up that rust between the shaft and the sprocket, and then use sooberoo's method of pulling the sprocket with a gear puller. A 3 clawed unit that hooks behind the gear would save having the thread the sprocket, if it'll fit behind the gear space wise.

 

I can't recall ever seeing an engine that dirty behind the timing covers. There is a LOT of corrosion going on that doesn't help your situation at all. Good Luck!

Thanks for all the replies

 

@Sooberoo very much appreciated advice. Thank you

 

@gbhrps I was thinking the same about soaking it. Not much room to fit anything behind the gear unfortunately. It is pretty dirty. Bought the car with 160k on it, previous owner said they did maintenance down there around 140k or something of that nature. Subaru almost has 200k on it now so it's definitely over due to replace all the timing belt stuff.

Do you guys think that chipped keyway is going to give me any issues? In the pictures you can kind of see it. The left side of the keyway was damaged when the key broke.

If it has any burrs just file down the rough edge just enough to not interfere with new sprocket/pulley.

The new key sits against the undamaged edge so the new pulley and sprocket will still line up properly.

Awesome thanks for the advice and tips. Hope I can get it sorted out next week