OM617 Balancer and Front Main Seal

[JayKray]

Hi all, I know this has already been discussed a few times and I've learned a ton from searching on this forum already. However, I think I might have a few things to add that might help others, and I also have a few questions.

First, I mentioned in a previous thread that my harmonic balancer looked as though it was epoxied on, maybe with bearing retainer. This scared me a little, but it looked like it was leaking very badly and since the motor is out, I decided to tackle it. I marked the position of the balancer by dimpling the shaft and the balancer with punch before removal.

I made a puller with a piece of angle iron. Drilled three holes, two clearance for the pulley mounting bolts and one in the center that was tapped. This can be seen in the first picture

I applied a bit of force with the center bolt, but the pulley still didn't want to come loose until I added quite a bit of heat with a propane torch.

What I saw was kind of what I expected after doing my research. The outer lip of the seal was half torn, and the inner lip was entirely gone, with the spring retainer spinning loosely on the crank shaft as shown in the second picture.

I cleaned it up and used the trick I found on this site which uses a plastic cup to help guide the new seal over the spacer ring. This is shown in the third picture.

I then polished the inner lip of the balancer for the sealing surface and did a test fit. I found that even with the epoxy removed, it was still a nice tight fit even though you can see the damage that had previously occured to the shaft. By hand, I couldn't get it much beyond the pins that stayed put in the balancer, but I was able to start there engagement, so I don't forsee much trouble getting the alignment and assembly correct.

Questions.
Should I use bearing retainer or another type of adhesive on the buggered up shaft to make sure I don't have problems in the future?

You might be able to make out in the pictures the crank position "pointer". It was bent over by a previous owner or mechanic. I bent it back into rough position, but how can I get this alignment back to exactly where it should be? Is there another way to find TDC without pulling the head?

Thanks,
Jay