Pulling flywheel

[That Girl Racing]

If you are bending the fingers you must put spacers between the fingers and the face of the flywheel. I realize you are not one for advice but that is what you have to do.

[SIIaCanuck]

If you are bending the fingers you must put spacers between the fingers and the face of the flywheel. I realize you are not one for advice but that is what you have to do.

You misunderstand me, I'm glad for the advice. I'm assuming that by fingers you're talking about hooks on the end of the arms that make up the puller jaws. Unfortunately, in this case, I've got the space at the flywheel and damper set up exactly as you describe with the fingers fully engaged but the arms are twisting/sliding sideways where they meet the 3-way cross head and the cheek plates aren't strong enough to stop them.

As for the torque load causing the twisting, that's probably from the cheap puller not being machined completely accurately. The bearing surfaces of the arms, where they meet the cross head, are fairly rough cast and the fingers themselves are probably not 100% square.

I think that I'll have to take the puller apart and machine a concave groove into the cross head bearing surface so the arms can't slip sideways when they get a bit of torque load. I'll also re-profile the arm bearing surface to match and could probably do with beefing up the cheek plates that attach the arms to the cross-head. They're pretty flimsy and some thicker/stiffer material would really help keep things aligned.

Of course I could stop flogging a dead horse and go get a better puller that doesn't say 'Powerfist' on the box. If my modified puller doesn't do the trick, then that'll be my next move.

So far, I've tried a harmonic balancer puller to the point of the bolts starting to stretch (not sure what grade so maybe grade 8 or 12 bolts might help) and my heavy duty diesel injector pump pulley tool doesn't take small enough bolts to grab anything on this flywheel. So I'm stuck with a 3-way flexible jaw puller.

[That Girl Racing]

This morning I am going to and bolt my puller onto a flywheel and take a pic and post it. Anyone with a drill press and arc welder could make one. Removing a flywheel should not be any more daunting a task than removing a cylinder head. It is a matter of the right tool. And you never should put heat to the flywheel stator area.

[Matt]

I bought one of these pullers for myself. If you are working on a lot of sled engines, it's worth it to me.

http://www.newbreedparts.com/newbreed/i ... uct_id=263

[lwb140]

I've had good luck with using a good harmonic balancer puller and socket head (good) 6mm bolts making sure to get the bolts long enough to screw through the hub on the flywheel , using an impact you can put a pretty good some good pressure on without breaking anything , I've only had one I've had to use heat on , but that one I heated with oxy acetylene and ruined the stator and the flywheel but the crank and block were fine good luck

[That Girl Racing]

It is the puller! You are not applying the torque to the taper properly. If you were it would come off. The tool you are using is inadequate, The one Matt is showing from New Breed is correct and again I like to put spacers between the puller plate and flywheel ant tighten the 6mm bolts right up before tightening the pusher bolt.

[lwb140]

So is it fair to say without the spacers tightening the puller up to the face of the flywheel the pulling action may actually tighten the grasp of the taper as the hub flexes as it's pulled ? Trying to visualize what's happening , kind of like a chinease finger puzzle the harder you pull the tighter it clamps ?

[That Girl Racing]

To a degree yes. Here is another analogy. Say you are using a slide hammer. We take a 3/8 bolt screw it into a plate but leave it loose. Then we weld the slide hammer to it and give it a couple of good whacks. You will eventually pound the threads out of the hole and strip the threads off the bolt. Tighten the 3/8 bolt to the plate , weld it to the head and try again. Guaranteed you can pound it all you want and nothing will move (weld will probably break) That is what is happening when you use a harmonic or steering wheel puller on a flywheel. The torque is pulling threads, bending bolts, bending fingers etc. It is putting pressure everywhere but where you need it. Google the Ski-Doo flywheel puller. It is machined in the middle to clear the crank threads but bolts directly to the flywheel.

[SIIaCanuck]

Paul,

After my response to you I thought, 'am I being an ass' had a good look at the puller. Having had a good look, I need to eat some 'humble pie' and admit that you've hit the nail on the head with the tool being inadequate.

The fingers on my cheap puller are flexing at different rates so the pull is asymmetric and isn't loading the taper evenly. With the puller just over finger tight, it has next to no runout on the forcing screw but when I torque it up, it develops a lot of runout (almost 1/8" from centre). It doesn't matter how well I space and tighten the harmonic absorber. I could modify the puller as I previously mentioned, and I might anyway just to improve it for other jobs, but in this case, I'm better off going for a better tool.

That puller on newbreedparts.com looks very similar to my pulley tool in my diesel pump timing set. I'll get myself some good quality 6mm bolts to go with it, make up some bushings to keep them centred in the slots, snug everything up with spacers, check that I've got near-enough no runout on the forcing screw and try again.

These cheap $15 tools are OK for pulling 'slightly stiff' pulleys off of splined shafts but that's about it. I guess there's a reason the pump set cost 10x what the cheap one did.

As for the use of heat, I'll try to avoid it from now on. I was being pretty cautious with it anyway but I'm sure the use of heat isn't my primary problem.

I'll let you know how I get on.

[That Girl Racing]

After re-reading the post, it sounds like you were trying to use a 3 jaw gear puller? If that is the case the scenario that lwb140 was tailing about is definitely happening.

[SIIaCanuck]

No doubt about it.

3-jaw puller with an asymmetric pulling load. There isn't an even pull on the taper and on one side of the taper, the interference load is increasing, not reducing.

[JDT]

Arms???

What kind of puller are you using?

Just what I suspected.

Never use a 3-jaw for this type of application.

[SIIaCanuck]

Arms???

What kind of puller are you using?

Just what I suspected.

Never use a 3-jaw for this type of application.

You get away with it a couple times and then . . . this thread shows the result.

[motoXman]

Be careful if you hit the rod on the puller to shock the crank/flywheel. It's possible to bend the end of the crankshaft. Hit it straight and be moderate with the hammer.

[liquitisplit80]

Why couldn't one of you gentlemen who knows what they're doing make a video of this process and post it on here for those of us (me) who has never done this before? A video of removing the primary clutch would be helpful too!