Basket Pulley Puller

[mmiller]

I needed to remove the basket pulley on my 149. Here's a tool I came up with to do it. I'm sure someone else has thought of this but it was new to me.

I took a 4" long piece of pipe and bored it out to just fit over the hub of the pulley. Then I drilled the side so I could screw a bolt through it into the set screw hole of the pulley hub.

Next I welded a nut on the outer end of the pipe to allow my slide hammer to screw on.

I attached everything and started pulling with the hammer and the pulley came off effortlessly!

Notice I welded the nut on the perimeter of the pipe so the pulling force would be parallel to the crank axis. The weak spot in this is there is little surface area for the weld on the nut; I'm going to reinforce this and It will be good to go.

 

[dtanner]

Michael A. Miller
I did bend a pulley the first time I removed one and I do like your idea. simple and looks easy to make.Could a heavy washer be used and cove the end ? this would give more stock to weld to. I will have to try that for sure. Thanks for that info. Don T

 

[fcurrier]

Mike:

I'd seen that last summer and let it slide. (No pun intended) Now that Don's brought it back up here (thanks in part to the rain I sent over there today) I'm curious as to why not center the nut on the pipe. Wouldn't it still be parallel to the crank axis?
Don: Here's your chance to send me a package. Have 2 of them made up and send me one. That pulley has to be the weakest part of these engines to come off without FIU.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Don, while you're making the two, you may as well make three and send one to me as well.

 

[aaytay]

Four!

 

[vthomley]

No need to make me one, I'll just borrow it from Art!

 

[jharvey]

I think one could weld that nut in the center of the pipe then thread a bolt through to contact the crank and pull the pulley off. No slide hammer needed.
There is a kit sold to do the same thing but of course it's more fun to make one. We used it at work for removing fan blades from electric motors.

 

[fcurrier]

We're gaining! I think Jerry's right. I got as far as deciding the pipe needs to be 1-5-8" I.D. Aaron??

 

[mmiller]

Frank,
I didn't center the nut on the pipe because the the point of attachment of the pipe to the pulley is on the pipe perimeter. Putting the nut on the perimeter keeps the force direction parallel to the crank/pulley axis. If the nut were centered on the pipe the puller would put some torque on the pipe, making it tend to rotate on the attaching screw, throwing the pipe in the direction of the screw.

I'm sure it would still work if centered, but this configuration seems like a more efficient use of force.

 

[mmiller]

Jerry,

Using a bolt to turn the pulley off would torque the pipe just like the second drawing below. On a tight pulley it might even bend the retaining screw.

If there were another set screw hole we could take advantage of....maybe 180 degrees opposite the existing one, to keep the pipe on axis, then the bolt would work, but we're stuck with just the one hole.

 

[jharvey]

Michael
Thanks for clearing that up, makes sense. I had in my mind that aforementioned kit that we used to borrow from maintenance to pull fan blades. It used two setscrews to pinch the hub and that was all we needed cause those were new parts. We had to change fan blades on international shipments where 50 HZ power was common. A good tip on the basket pulley is to break the bond with the crank by tapping it on further with a punch and hammer and of course lots of PB Blaster. It then comes off easier.