Vibration Damper Removal: Crank keeps moving.

Hello,
I'm removing my timing chain cover to get three broken bolts out (dont ask....i dont feel like explaining ) and i have to remove the crank pulley and vibration damper to do that. Well when i was going to remove the crank pulley i had to use a socket/ratchet/bar going to the ground on the balancer bolt to keep the crank from going counterclockwise. So, with the crank stable by the balancer bolt i got the pulley off. But obviously now i need to take the balancer bolt out, how am i supposed to keep the crank from moving now? I dont want to do anything stupid and jack up the balancer (and i dont have the money for a new one right now, just started my new job and i am tapped till next check and this is my daily driver). So how do i keep the crank still?

Also is it hurting anything that when i was taking the pulley off, before i knew it would turn, the crank turned counterclockwise a little? I guess i'm just an idiot but i didn't think it would turn counterclockwise, so is that gonna screw anything up?

Thanks a ton for any help,
-E

Ok i made sure the car is in gear and i got a long piece of pipe (3+foot) and tried to break the bolt loose like that and what happens is, as i push the pipe up to turn the oblt counterclockwise, the balancer slowly turns with it and there is no further room for the pipe to go over and so i let off pressure and the balancer returns to its starting position (note not just balancer, crank also of course). So how is it turning at all if the car is in gear and the break's on? I see what you mean, an air wrench would help a lot to get that real fast turn before the crank can catch up. OH wait! we have an air wrench! Doh wouldn't you know, it wont work Dont you hate it when that happens? lol.....

So...can someone explain how it can turn at all with the tranny in gear? Maybe i should get the wrench on there and give it some quick jolts with a hammer or something??

Thanks
-E

wytstang said:

Put it in 5th gear that what I did worked just fine.

Click to expand...

Right on! Got that sucker out of there!

However now i'm a little confused as to getting it off. I borrowed a puller from autozone (the kind recommended by mr. haynes manual) which applies pressure to the hub rather than the outer parts of the balancer as to not damage it. Ok so it came with one huge bolt, some smaller bolts, and something shaped like a chicken's foot. So apparently the huge bolt goes through the chicken foot into where i just removed that bolt from in the center. Then the chicken foot attaches to the assembly by way of the holes that the crank pulley attaches to. So do i just crank and crank to the right until it pulls off? I turned it to the right until it hit bottom or something and then it gets real stiff like its wanting to turn the crank like earlier. Should it be really hard to turn off or what? Thanks for all the help, slowly but surely getting it done.
-E

Done and done.
Thanks to everyone who replied! One more thing i know how to do, learning one job at a time hehe.
-E