Toyota Repair: 98 Camry crankshaft pulley wheel, crankshaft pulley, pulley wheels

Question
Hi Ted,

I'm having a problem getting the crankshaft pulley wheel off the crankshaft on my '98 Camry so I can get to the timing cover behind.  The only place to use a puller is to grip the outside of the wheel but the book tells me specifically not to do that.  There are no grooves anywhere else on the wheel to grip with a puller.  There are 4 holes in the wheel spaced equally, each about 3" from the center but they are only about 3/16" and not tapped so I can't use a damper puller either.  I tried using a pry-bar and tapping the wheel with a hammer after having used penetrating oil but no luck so far.  I'm actually thinking about drilling two of the small holes larger (on opposite sides, of course) and tapping them so I could use a damper puller.  Do you see a problem with this?  I've remove pulley wheels on several different cars in the past and never had this problem before.  Usually you can just rock it off by hand.  Let me know if you've got any tricks I haven't thought of.

Thanks again,

Jim

Answer
The crankshaft pulleys normally come right off with a couple of prybars, persistent prying always removes even the stubborn ones, don't have any other solution other than to just keep trying.
You may be able to apply some heat with a propane torch to the pulley to expand it as a last resort.