Chevy 3.4 liter engine harmonic balancer question

use one of these:

torque always drops a bit with sloppy joints and tools, so if you use a worn socket or a deep drive socket, the torque should drop sufficiently. if you're still concerned and want to drop it a tad more, add a 3" normal extension to the driver end.

You could always use one of those flywheel rotating tools

I'd suggest that you need not purchase anything. If no other access point exists or is readily reached (e.g., an inspection plate or mag pickup port), pull the starter and hold the ring gear on the flywheel/flex plate with a large, flat blade screw- driver. Another old trick is to pull a spark plug, insert enough rope into a cylinder on its compression stroke to restrict travel of the piston.

I've done the rope trick in the past.. You have to be careful that pieces of the rope don't get stuck in the cylinder.

OK, I got it off today but haven't put it back on yet. I need a harmonic balancer installer that I can get at Autozone (they loan out tools) maybe they have one of those also. Thanks.

Rope trick sounds interesting.

that'll work too. make sure you're on the compression stroke, not exhaust - you could bend a valve if the latter.

I've done the rope trick in the past.. You have to be careful that pieces of the rope don't get stuck in the cylinder. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Properly done (be aware of the inserted rope length), any small remnants should be easily expelled by a couple revolutions of the engine before the spark plug is re-installed.