Put a pipe on that breaker bar or get an even more powerful impact wrench.

Hammer

 

When pulling the harmonic balancer pulley what worked for me was to put both rear wheels on the garage floor, set the emergency brake, chock both sides of the rear wheels, put the car in 4th gear (MN6) and use a breaker bar with 3ft cheater pipe. The bolt freed up easily. Then I jacked the rear back up and went to work on pulling the balancer and removing the front engine cover, etc. I did the same thing when I installed the new balancer and new bolt but was unable to get the 140 degree rotation so I gave the new bolt the old steriod jerk until the torque wrench clicked at 220ft lbs and the disc in my lower back clicked

I believe you can do a similar method on an automatic by putting the car in 1st gear.

Good luck.

 

Got it, blew out my left nut though!

 

Hawk, did that fix your squeaking sound? Sounds like I may be in the same boat as you. I just do not understand how that could cause the squeaking sound.

Jimmy

 

I had the sqeak you speak of, and the pulley was the answer. my guess is that when the pulley wobbles, the belt runs up against the side of the belt channel on the pulley and causes the squeak. a new belt didnt fix the squeak, but a spray of wd-40 did the trick for a brief few seconds.

and i just replaced my pulley this past thursday. sqeak free and Daily driving it.

 

When my car squeaked, it turned out to be the tensioner on the a/c belt.

To diagnose, I ran the car with one belt at a time. Only squeaked when a/c belt was on. I squirted some WD40 on the tensioner and the squeak temp went away. $60 later at the auto parts store and I had a replacement tensioner and squeak has not reappeared. Replaced both belts while there anyway.

 

Any instructions on how do do this procedure without removing the rack?

 

When you find that information, make sure you share it

 

Is there a write up with pictures? I've done searches and looked at the LS1howto writeup and then see on this forum that there should be corrections to the LS1howto writeup.

Looking for a very nice, straight forward, easy to follow write up that everyone agrees on if one exists.

I do have the GM service manuals but I also know that there are shortcuts as in not fully removing the steering rack but only the right side and pushing it forward. In other words, I'm looking for a clean write up with practical short cuts, not half a** short cuts.

 

Can't help you there. The service manual is a no brainer, and it's what I used. Piece of cake.

 

Chrome,
You're right, the rack can be repositioned out of the way without dropping the subframe to get it all the way out.
But the "shortcut" people claim you can r&r the balancer by chocking the wheels and setting the parking brake is nonsense. Many of those installs have come off since this thread was started.

Do yourself and your car a favor and buy a J 42386-A. It's a cast steel tool ($85) that bolts into the starter mounting holes to lock the flywheel in place so you can do the job right. The reason everyone makes this install out to be so hard is because they're not doing it right. The balancer doesn't get seated properly and the bolt isn't sufficiently tightened. Also, you shouldn't need to pin the crank on a normal powered car if you install the balancer and torque the bolt correctly. Trying to remove the Balancer bolt without the flywheel lock felt like I was pulling on a rubber band. My breakover was twisted all the way across the engine compartment and the bolt hardly had any torque on it. With the J-Tool in place the bolt came right off- with no heat either. Install using the GM bolt ($6) was a snap too! Again, get that tool. Use it once and resell it on eBay to another C5 owner.

 

Do yourself another favor and use some HEAT to install the new balancer...stick it in the oven on 200 for like 20 minutes or something.

If I had seen this sooner, I would have told you to heat the center hub of that balancer with a torch for a few minutes..it would have slid off WAY easier. AND broke the locktite loose.
Donnie

 

How much wobble are you talking about? Mine has just the very slightest at idle, none at increased rpms.

 

I'd like to hear more about this method.

 

Great Advice Cratecruncher. I have an ATI balancer waiting for my car to come out of storage. I will also be on the search for the tool you mention (I assume you sold yours?).

If heat is needed, I'm probably only going to do it to get the old balancer off. I purchased a longer bolt for installing the new balancer then I plan on installing the GM bolt for the final installation and torquing.

 

Chrome,
I haven't sold my flywheel lock yet and it's for sale. Just send me a PM. Also, the safest way to install the new Balancer is with an installation tool. I made mine from a piece of M16-2x300 threaded rod and some nuts based on good advice on this forum. I have some extra rod I'll throw in with the J-tool because it only comes in 4 foot lengths and I now have a lifetimes worth. You can still use your longer bolt as a push point for your puller - it works better than a socket in my opinion. I drilled a small dimple in the center to prevent the puller from wandering.

 

Yea, you dont have to completely remove the rack, just unbolt it and get it hanging out the passenger side so its out of your way. I did it that way to pin my crank on my 98. It takes some wrestling, you have to rotate it a bunch of different directions to get it through. When I did my cam swap on my Z06 I just pulled it all the way out(since everything was out of the way anyway

Its not too bad a job, just time consuming. The hardest part is the crank bolt itself. I personally use a jack handle(about 4ft long) slid over my 1/2" break bar. Plenty of leverage

 

A good impact wrench is the best way to remove the balancer bolt, hands down! Took me like 3 minutes and it was out.