mwester

Just wanted to share my experience replacing my Optispark...

The whole job wasn't too bad.. most of it was basic wrenching until I got to the harmonic balancer.

I beat on that thing for about 3 hours and it never budged. There just wasn't enough room to get any kind of swing on it and I didn't have a wheel puller small enough to get in there.

I finally had a brain flash and put the car on jack stands so I could look under it. From underneath, I was able to take a two and a half foot piece of pipe and slide it between the oil pan and the exhaust and butt it right up to the back of the harmonic balancer. I wadded up a grease rag and wedged it between the oil pan and the pipe to make it stay in place so I could get a swing on it.

A couple of good whacks and it moved. I then rotated the crank so I could whack the other side and it popped right off. The whole process took about 10 minutes.

It was a good moment when that thing finally came off. :-)

antfarmer2

The three hours losened it. If it still starts losen the bolts and start it a few times. Use antisize on it to reinstall.

TorchTarga94

Yes first time usually requires getting underneath. I would recommend 2x4 and not pipe though.

Clean backside of balancer with a wire brush drill attachment and paint it with a thin coat of anti seize.

pcolt94

I had the same problem 10 years ago but I used a steel 3/4 inch pipe cause I wanted to stay close to center and stay on the 3 spokes. I think I grabbed a 2x4 (hard to remember) at first but I could not get it to fit in the way I wanted to and could not see what it was hitting and did not want to touch to outer piece of the balancer.

I did emery cloth the mating surfaces, cleaned them up well and used a little grease. Now it just falls off.