Can anyone suggest where to get or what to use to hold the pulley in place while you loosen the bolt? The Helm service manual lists a very nice looking specialty tool which of course I cannot get at my local Autozone. Anyone who has done this have any suggestions?

Also while I'm on the subject: The timing belt is coming off in order to replace a blown head gasket. The same service manual specifies a special tool to remove the head bolts. Does anyone have any experience with this and can tell me if the bolt heads are splined or allen-style?

I've searched for related posts and found nothing -my bad if I overlooked something.

Thanks in advance!

crank pulley tool

PM Taro and Nazrat- they might know of its whereabouts.

Ed

I don't know if this applies to the 3.5L, but it sure worked with my 2.6:

Get a breaker bar and socket on that bolt, brace the breaker bar on the side of the engine bay, and tap (only tap! do not keep cranking!) the ignition key/starter to turn over the engine. This forces the engine to turn over, but doesn't allow the bolt to spin, thereby loosening that bolt.

For the 2.6, the engine wants to spin clockwise as you're looking at it from the front. I don't see why you couldn't use this technique with your engine...

I had a friend fab me a spanner for this purpose. Piece of plate steel with a hole in the center to allow socket access, welded to a piece of plate (~2" x 24") as a handle, two bolts welded to the lower plate to fit in the bolt holes on the pulley.

I did it the good old fashioned way. Get a friend. Pull the 4 10mm bolts off the torque converter dust cover. Use a largeflat head screwdriver or prybar into one of the teeth on the flywheel and resting against the houses. The other person breaks the bolt loose.

For the head bolts. It's a 10mm allen bit. I basically got a metric allen set, Cut the thing down and welded it to a 10mm 1/2 drive socket and used a breaker bar to looses all the bolts. The welding is optional. I found it made my life a little easier.