97 neon crank pulley

A freind of mine changed the head gasket on his 97 neon dohc.and now
needs to take off the crank pulley so he can compress his tensioner. i
personally dont know much about this car and only breifly had a chance
to look at it, but i am wondering if there is any tricks to pulling
this pulley. he borrowed my puller and said it wouldnt come off and
even tried heating it and it still wouldnt come off. now i find this
weird because i have never had any problems getting these off before.
is there a trick to it???he just wants it fixed and i want my puller
back.

thanks for the help

what kind of puller is he using? IS it a harmonic balacer pulley? I
have had a problem once with a pulley not wanting to come off. I used
a 3 ton jaw pulley and it didn't remove it. Then I soaked the
crankshaft in penetrating oil overnight; saturate it. the next day I
used the harmonic balancer puller and sprayed some more lubricant and
kept working back and forth. Did he use a torch to heat the pulley up?
this can lead to other headaches. Might damage the crankshaft front
seal .. The penatrating oil has always work for me and I have done a
bunch of OHC and OHV timing belts, chains and cylinder heads..
Good Luck!!

i told him to use lots of penetrating oil. it was a 3 jaw puller. i
have used it before to pull these pulleys. i also didnt like the idea
of heating it up, but he did anyway. what is sthe difference in a 3 jaw
and a harmonic balancer puller??? i have never heard of one i just use
my old puller.

thanx for the advice

Be careful with that one. If it's the one I'm thinking, the pulley is
capped over the end of the crank & you gotta put a bolt in the crank so
as to have something to push against. I seem to remember stories about
how hard they are to get off & broken pulleys & pullers & when I
finally saw one firsthand, discovered that they aren't hard to pull,
you just gotta know how. Good luck.