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Old 03-01-2008, 01:17 AM
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Strife Strife is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: KY USA
Posts: 2,238
This question comes up a lot.

1. I think I'm pretty mechanically adept, and if I have to buy a tool I'll buy it, and if I can't buy it I'll make it or have it made. But there was NO WAY that I could get the bottom water pump bolt out without taking off the balancer. The notch may have worked on an earlier car, but the 560 pump is different than the iron 117 or the 116, and the bolt head didn't quite line up with the notch. You can loosen the bolt - but you will never get it out without balancer removal.

2. That being said, the balancer is pretty easy to get off, if you have patience.

a. Soak the heck out of it in-between the crack of the balancer and the hub with PB blaster, and wait a few hours.

b. Indelibly mark the balancer indexed to the hub. This is important.

c. After removing the six bolts, Use a plastic mallet to bang the balancer back and forth to wiggle it off.

d. Reinstall the balancer when done. Note that one of the six bolts is not equidistant from the others and the balancer will only go on in one position - that's why step (b), and the need to realign the marks you made. The bolt holes in the hub are only very slightly different, it's hard to see, and you will otherwise spend a lot of time hunting for the right position. With my luck, I think I got 5 bolts in 5 times (that's 25 bolt installations) before I got it right.
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