Installing new crank pulley

Fellas, how difficult should it be to install a crank pulley? I just went through the process of stripping down the front of the motor to replace my front timing seal, gasket plus rear main seal and pan gasket.

I was able to get the pulley onto the key but had to wollap it a few times to get threads to show, then used the nut to get it on the rest of the way.

If this sounds bad, I’d rather hear now than having something go wrong after the reassembly process.

I don’t want to find out after the fact that I boogered up the (new) seal in the process.

This was a new pulley and I had to use a jaw puller to get the old one off. When I was struggling, I tried the old one and it had similar resistance.

This was from army jeep parts….USA made double groove for M38

The resistance doesnt sound out of ordinary unless you had to wack it hard. A light skim of grease on the crankshaft, and outer pully hub where it meets the seal will ease the installation.   Some leave the timing chain cover loose as the pully is installed to help keep the pully centered in the seal.

I had to whack it pretty hard. I used a dead blow hammer onto a piece of 3" PVC conduit. Once threads were showing, the impact pushed it back pretty easily.

Had I been on my top game, I would have test-fit the pulley before putting the timing cover on.

I'll take a look at things this evening and decide if its prudent to remove the timing cover, scrape off the gasket sealer and put on a new gasket. Fingers crossed it all looks OK. The end game here is to stop leaks, and I'll be darned if I wouldnt' be mad to put it all back together to find that I boogered up my new timing seal.

UPDATE….

I took the pulley back off tonight with a 2 jaw puller. It’s a beast of a pulley, way stouter than the stock one.

The timing seal is just fine. I attempted to measure how centered the cover /seal is by sticking my finger in and using a feeler gauge to determine the gap difference when pushing my finger against against the slinger relative to the edge of my fingernail. Non scientific but it’s probably 0.005 to 0.007” out of center. I can’t see the seal being that sensitive….I waited to crank the timing cover tight yesterday until after cranking down the nut.

I also cleaned the crank tip behind the threads and the inside of the new pulley and it went back on much easier

All is well…..