Great way to hold balancer while removing bolt.
10-09-2017, 05:56 AM
#22
Drifting
10-11-2017, 12:54 AM
#24
Melting Slicks
11-24-2018, 05:54 PM
#25
Safety Car
Wow, good info...I dud see a tool from summit that wedges in the balancer to hold it. I do worry a little bit about the idler pulley as that bracket that holds it is a pain to swap...worst case though this will be the method I try...much appreciated.
11-25-2018, 09:17 AM
#26
This is what the PO used to do the job. His neighbor a fellow C5 owner had made this for work on his car.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1580794411
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1580794411
12-15-2022, 10:07 PM
#28
Le Mans Master
If you have had to remove your balancer from the front of the crank for any reason, and your car is an automatic, you know that holding the balancer to keep the engine from turning over is one of the hardest parts of the job, second only to actually removing the bolt.
Bill Curlee said in one thread that he had used a LARGE strap wrench to hold his. I have not seen my method anywhere, but it could be out there. If so, this will just make it a little easier to find in a search. I played off of Bills' theory a little bit and came up with this idea, and you don't even need any tools.
- I used the serpentine belt that I took off of the car and wrapped it around the idler pulley just to the right of the balancer (if you are facing the car).
- Take the "bottom" side of the belt and bring it around the bottom of the balancer, feeding it under the top wrap. Keep feeding it around until it is snug.
- This is what it should look like. When you begin to loosen the bolt, it will move about an inch or so before it tightens up. It WILL NOT move once the belt tightens up. And the harder you try to turn the more it will tighten upon itself.
The pictures above show how to wrap the belt if you are removing the bolt. When you get ready to re-install the new bolt, just reverse the wrap around the balancer, starting at the bottom of the balancer and bringing your wrap around to the top.
Using this method, you are only limited to breaking the idler pulley or breaking the belt. It will take much more that 240 ft/lbs of torque to do that. I wasn't sure if the belt would be damaged by this and decided that if it did damage it, I would just put a new belt on. I don't have any long term results, but I could not see any damage and put the same belt back on the car.
Bill Curlee said in one thread that he had used a LARGE strap wrench to hold his. I have not seen my method anywhere, but it could be out there. If so, this will just make it a little easier to find in a search. I played off of Bills' theory a little bit and came up with this idea, and you don't even need any tools.
- I used the serpentine belt that I took off of the car and wrapped it around the idler pulley just to the right of the balancer (if you are facing the car).
- Take the "bottom" side of the belt and bring it around the bottom of the balancer, feeding it under the top wrap. Keep feeding it around until it is snug.
- This is what it should look like. When you begin to loosen the bolt, it will move about an inch or so before it tightens up. It WILL NOT move once the belt tightens up. And the harder you try to turn the more it will tighten upon itself.
The pictures above show how to wrap the belt if you are removing the bolt. When you get ready to re-install the new bolt, just reverse the wrap around the balancer, starting at the bottom of the balancer and bringing your wrap around to the top.
Using this method, you are only limited to breaking the idler pulley or breaking the belt. It will take much more that 240 ft/lbs of torque to do that. I wasn't sure if the belt would be damaged by this and decided that if it did damage it, I would just put a new belt on. I don't have any long term results, but I could not see any damage and put the same belt back on the car.
I know it's a necro thread, but this is BRILLIANT! How did we ever fix anything before the interwebs?
