I'm still working on my engine. I finally got down to the crankshaft timing belt pulley and can't seem to pull it off. I'm using the proper puller with the right bolts, but the damn thing just won't budge. Should it be this hard to pull off? The crankshaft oil seal failed and that's what I'm trying to get to. Anyway, any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,

 

ill give you a tip, Take a small propane torch after you have your puller all hooked up and pressure on the gear, try to heat it up evenly and it'll start to move, if it stops sliding off put the heat back to it. You dont have to get it red hot, just warm enough you get smoke from oil residue or whatever is on it.
to put it back on your gonna have to do the same thing probly.
It was really stubborn on my motor. Once its heated up some it should slide right off if you keep the heat to it whiles its moving, helps to have 2 people. Putting it back on can be a real bitch without beating it on with a hammer & smashing your thrust bearing. I had to keep it hot, and tap it on carefully untill i could get the crank bolt in enough threads to use that to helps press it on, then you run out of threads & gotta find something to use as a spacer.
hope that helps you out.

 

Thanks. I'll give that a try. Are they all this difficult to work on? I was wondering how difficult it would be to put it back on again as well. Did you use any high temp anti seize when you reinstalled the both of these pulleys on the crank?

My next effort after replacing the leaking crankshaft front oil seal will be to replace the water pump. The one that is on there is operating fine and there doesn't appear to be any play in the bearing, but since I have this thing apart right now I can't bear not taking this opportunity to replace the water pump with a brand new one. Am I right here or should I just wait for it to fail in the future?

 

Yes, you should get a new water pump before you put it all back together. Its not like its gonna break the bank, I got my reman at advanceautoparts.com for $23.00 and it is well worth it. Also just make sure that you dont re-use the timing belt, I prefer to get the goodyear gatorback belts, they tend to last alot longer than normal belts; I belive it was $90 bucks on advanceautoparts.com for my order with the milage maker v-belt and serpentine belt, goodyear gatorback timing belt, and reman water pump; then I took the old pump back to the store to get my core deposit back so it really only ended up being about $67 bucks for all that stuff, not bad. Also how many miles are on your neon? If it is getting up there it might be a good idea to just go ahead and change out the head gasket while you have everything apart. Since you have that whole side of the motor apart it wouldnt be too hard, mabey 3 hours out of your way. Well whatever you do, GOOD LUCK!!

O and I also forgot what racer said sounds about right, when I did mine I didnt have to take off the crank gear but if that dosent work then try spraying it with wd-40 or pb blast or somthing and let it sit overnight, hitting it with a rubber mallet every hour or two. That should help loosen it up; Do you have a haynes manual? If not then I would suggest getting one at a parts store for about 15 bucks, and you can make sure that you are doing it right, these also come in handy for lots of things, I have one for every vehicle I work on.

 

Thanks for the advice. I am going to hit this again tomorrow morning. Its raining pretty hard right now and I don't feel like getting wet doing this. I bought the new belts already and agree with your choices. The reason why I'm going through this is because the front crank oil seal failed. The old timing belt was pretty well soaked with oil. I learned a long time ago that it is always cheaper to put a new timing belt or chain on. With the size of this engine I can only imagine what the internal damage would be like if the belt broke or even skipped a tooth while at 3000 rpm!

I bought that new water pump but was a little disgusted when I read the Haynes manual. I think that I have to pull the two cam sprockets off and then pull the back timing belt cover off in order to be able to pull the water pump. All of the other gears are had to pull and I am afraid that pulling the two cam sprockets off will also be a chore.

I was looking at the diagram and thought that I may be able to take a short cut by cuting away the part of the back timing cover around the water pump. There seems to be enough bolts to hold the cut away portion when I put it back together. Have you heard of this or considered this?

I already did the head gaskets a year or two ago so I don't have to go through that again.

 

if all else fails full coverage insurance and a gallon of gas good luck

 

Haynes manuals all tell you the exact same thing, barely anything is even vehicle speific;
"to remove water pump: take it off...
To reinstall: reverse above procedure"
Some help that **** is.[:'(]