The war of attrition against the crank pulley continues.  The outlook is grim.

So today I started out once again trying to get the crank pulley removed.  I made some decent progress and have it about 95% of the way now.  That is the good news.

The bad news is that I have now broken 3 pulley pullers trying to get it the rest of the way out.  The first 2 pullers were the cheap harbor freight ones which first stripped out all the threads getting the pulley to this point.  The second puller popped a head off one of the arm bolts.  After this I went to Advanced Auto and picked up an Autocraft heavy duty puller.  I was back in the store 20 minutes later to return it since one arm failed by a bolt shearing right through it and another of the arms bending.  Heavy duty my ass.  So they refunded me and I rented their Powerbuilt Kit #43 puller.  I’m loving this one, they might not get it back.  So I hook up the uber puller and start to cranking on it and there is a large pop which is never a good sign.  I inspect the puller and no damage.  I thought I had killed the unkillable puller.  No, instead the puller did it’s job too well and snapped one of the tabs off the inner wheel of the pulley that is used for the pullers to grab on to.

So at this point I am not sure what to do about getting this pulley off since there are only 2 out of 3 places for the puller to grab onto now.  I suppose I could try pulling from the outside of the pulley but that would damage it and it would then need to be replaced.  Maybe this is the engine telling me that it wants to be upgraded to an Underdrive pulley.  I think a longer crank bolt might help resolve this as well since the stock one cuts it very close.  I’m warning the engine though, don’t make me get a torch and sledge.