After reading person after person tout the benefits of the billetflow pulley puller, I (of course) completely ignored all of them and trusted the love of my life to my buddies garage.
Now, in my own defense, he had a 94 GT that was hand built to 450+ HP, and knows more about cars than I do about, well… anything.
And so – we began to pull the pulley. We were cranking away like you wouldn’t believe, but it didn’t seem that the pulley was moving. So where was all of the pressure going? Oh – to crack the shit out of the stock pulley. So – what to do now? Well, the old pulley was screwed, so at this point, all we cared about was getting it off. We picked up two pieces of hinge steel at the local hardware store and used them behind the pulley to evenly distribute the pressure. This worked – and we soon heard the beloved “pop”…
Now to put the new pulley on.
We got the pulley 2/3rds of the way on, but it wouldn’t go any further. The installer we used had impact washers and bearings – but no matter how hard we tried, we could not get the pulley (and blower shaft) to hold still, so the damn tool backed out with every turn. We tried a strap wrench, and a bigger one, but to no avail.
We finally decided to pull the thing, add more grease, and start over again.
Of course, you guessed it, we jacked up the pulley when we tried to remove it.
So – I decided to listen to you yahoos… I contacted Doug, ordered a replacement pulley (which he very kindly discounted – some kind of discount for the mentally handicapped I think) and ordered his puller / installer. Had it shipped overnight and it arrived today.
My buddy came by – it took longer to assemble the puller (about 5 minutes) than it took to pull the pulley. The damn thing was so tight that it “popped” three different times. It then took another 5 minutes to put the new pulley on with his installer. His installer was the same basic design as the one I was using, but was substantially heftier.
And so – my lesson learned – use the right tool for the job. To quote Sgt. John Stryker from The Sands of Iwo Jima, “Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid”.
The only other thing that I can contribute is, Kragen auto has a little plastic plug (part number 6119952, package part number 45491) that is a nice replacemet “Christmas tree” for plugging your snout back up when you are through.
Thanks all for your input through this unnecessarily trying time...
Now, in my own defense, he had a 94 GT that was hand built to 450+ HP, and knows more about cars than I do about, well… anything.
And so – we began to pull the pulley. We were cranking away like you wouldn’t believe, but it didn’t seem that the pulley was moving. So where was all of the pressure going? Oh – to crack the shit out of the stock pulley. So – what to do now? Well, the old pulley was screwed, so at this point, all we cared about was getting it off. We picked up two pieces of hinge steel at the local hardware store and used them behind the pulley to evenly distribute the pressure. This worked – and we soon heard the beloved “pop”…
Now to put the new pulley on.
We got the pulley 2/3rds of the way on, but it wouldn’t go any further. The installer we used had impact washers and bearings – but no matter how hard we tried, we could not get the pulley (and blower shaft) to hold still, so the damn tool backed out with every turn. We tried a strap wrench, and a bigger one, but to no avail.
We finally decided to pull the thing, add more grease, and start over again.
Of course, you guessed it, we jacked up the pulley when we tried to remove it.
So – I decided to listen to you yahoos… I contacted Doug, ordered a replacement pulley (which he very kindly discounted – some kind of discount for the mentally handicapped I think) and ordered his puller / installer. Had it shipped overnight and it arrived today.
My buddy came by – it took longer to assemble the puller (about 5 minutes) than it took to pull the pulley. The damn thing was so tight that it “popped” three different times. It then took another 5 minutes to put the new pulley on with his installer. His installer was the same basic design as the one I was using, but was substantially heftier.
And so – my lesson learned – use the right tool for the job. To quote Sgt. John Stryker from The Sands of Iwo Jima, “Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid”.
The only other thing that I can contribute is, Kragen auto has a little plastic plug (part number 6119952, package part number 45491) that is a nice replacemet “Christmas tree” for plugging your snout back up when you are through.
Thanks all for your input through this unnecessarily trying time...
