Crankshaft pulley hack

Not willing to be defeated that early in the game, I tried clamping the edge of the pulley with a C-clamp and holding the clamp steady against the body of the car with some wood blocks. That worked pretty well. I could apply almost 100 ft-lbs, but inevitably the clamp would slip. I needed something much better than that. I was starting to run a little low on options, and was even starting to think about an air compressor and an impact wrench. Unfortunately, all stores close early on the weekend, so I wouldn't have been able to get to Harbor Freight till Monday.

So, I literally sat on the floor and stared at the pulley for 1/2 hour thinking about what to do. Sometimes just staring at an

object helps. After a while you get to know it like the back of your hand, and eventually I noticed a small shallow dimple, ~7mm in diameter on the side of the pulley. It looked a little out of place, there was no counterpart on the opposite side. It looked as if somebody drilled it. Eureka! I can clamp the clamp so it goes into the dimple, and this should keep the C-clamp from slipping! Well, the idea was great, but the implementation did not work. None of my C-clamps have ends that would actually fit inside the dimple. So, off to my CNC mill I go. About 20 minutes later I get a little contraption that looks like a rather crude C-clamp with a socket head 1/4-20 screw used for clamping. The screw fits nicely into the dimple, and holds with no questions asked. It still took a fair amount of effor, a skinned knuckle, better sized wood pieces and a piece of pipe as an extension to my breaker bar before the bolt finally gave way. The rest of the disassembly was painful, but at least not insurmountable. Now I have the timing and balancer belts off, and have access to the water pump and other things. I am still not sure where the coolant is leaking from, but it sure looks like it's leaking from the vicinity of the pump area. It would've been less fun if it was leaking from the head. I am even less sure about where the oil is leaking from. It's quite a mess under the belts, and my best guess is that it's coming from somewhere around the tensioned. But there shouldn't be any oil under pressure in there, right? Tomorrow I am going to get a small mirror on a long stick to aid with looking into hard-to-see places and do some cleaning. Hopefully that will help to narrow down on the sources of leaks. If not, I'll just have to clean everything well, put the car back together, drive for a little while and then open it up again and check for leaks. I really, really do not feel like doing so, but we'll just have to wait and see if I have many options.