Under drive pulley installed with ease thanks to my sweet home made tool.

[RacnJsn95]

About a month after my cam install I began having major problems with the factory balancer on my car. First it started making noise, then coming loose, eating belts, developed the death wobble... I figured if it had to be replaced, I might as well spend a little more and put an underdrive pulley on it and go with an ARP bolt...

I got the pulley kit, Powerbond brand, with 2 new belts from SDPC. Took about 2 weeks for it to show up, no tracking info via email, had to call them to see when, and if it had shipped. Anyway... Finally got it last week. Been thinking pretty hard on how to do this once and have no future issues, and also not have to pull the starter for a flywheel holding tool I didn't have, screw with a strap wrench to hold the pulley, etc etc...

So today I made this sweet tool that bolts to the UD pulley at the puller bolt pattern location, and has an arm long enough to use the frame rails as a stopping point to either loosen, or tighten and torque the bolt. It required a couple pieces I had waterjet cut, and a piece of 4130 tube I had. Center hole big enough to fit the bolt and washer though, can get the breaker bar, or torque wrench with socket to the bolt head with no extension needed to falsify torque wrench readings. Pics below (I didn't have enough arms to take pics with the wrench through the center, but you get the idea)

So following the random internet instructions, I fully seated the new pulley with the old bolt. I removed the old bolt, and installed the new ARP bolt putting the ARP supplied lube on the threads, and the washer, tightened the new bolt to 100 ft lb, 150, 200, and finally 240 ft lb. Piece of cake! Put the supplied belts on, and all my worries are over! I haven't driven the car for about 3 weeks due to the balancer problems, and it feels SO GOOD to drive it again!

Thoughts on the tool? I'm wondering if there is a market for it? Just out of curiosity I looked up the recommended J-42386A flywheel holding tool, and that thing is about $120 bucks new! Plus you have to pull the starter, and then put it back on?! Screw that!

Now, I can finally finish my axle back project this weekend, and move onto the SOLO high flow cat install in the near future.

[D00by]

Very nice!! That would definitely make things easier!

[jcmGT]

Very nice. I would have considered it in place of the flywheel holder. BTW, guy over on LS1tech sells the flywheel holder for $35. While it's better price than the kent moore, dropping the starter is painfull.

[RacnJsn95]

Very nice. I would have considered it in place of the flywheel holder. BTW, guy over on LS1tech sells the flywheel holder for $35. While it's better price than the kent moore, dropping the starter is painfull.

Didn't know that, that's pretty cheap! Still, I had no desire to pull the starter. Someone on Facebook told me it would take 10 minutes to puller the starter... In my mind I thought "Nothing on this car takes 10 minutes"... Did not want to go there if I didn't have to.

This one only works with under drive pulleys with the 3 hole pattern puller tools, but I also have it figured out for the factory pulley... But after reading about so many factory pulley failures even with such low miles, I figure why bother with factory. I also have an idea to turn this into a UD pulley puller, so it could be a 2 in one tool.

Anyway, sorry for going on about the tool. I'm super pumped to be able to drive the car again!!!!

[jcmGT]

Elongate the holes just like a 3 bolt puller and you should be set with coverage for ATI damper and others. The center hole needs to be big enough just for the socket Heck, replace the handle by welding on a old 1/2" drive socket and let the customer use their own 1/2" breaker bar. Or leave as it, looks great.

[TooManyHobbies]

That is nice and a better option than pulling the starter for front of the engine work only.

[gr8g8]

Good job.

I did it by jamming a pry bar in the flywheel. Never again. Probably added 2 hours extra to my cam swap because of how many times it fell out and I had to readjust it.

[-Ray-]

Nice tool. I would caution people on pulling on a balancer with just the old bolt. A couple have had to fix the end of their crank because the threads pulled out.

[RacnJsn95]

Nice tool. I would caution people on pulling on a balancer with just the old bolt. A couple have had to fix the end of their crank because the threads pulled out.

Good to know about the old bolt, guess I lucked out. I didn't know if I pulled it on with the arp bolt and torqued it if I would get a good reading still on the tq wrench.., hopefully I don't have to remove this in the near future.

[-Ray-]

What I did was heat it up. I used a propane torch and then tapped it on about 1/4" then pulled it on with the bolt. Once you have 4 turns on it you are pretty safe. It's still a great tool.