I have opti problems so need to get Damper off, after watching lots of YouTube videos on removing the damper, dug into mine. when i got to the damper i noticed no center bolt just the 3 bolts. how do i get the damper off the Hub to get at the opti?

here is 2 pics i took, Thanks!


Opti & Pulleys

Damper

 

The damper hub should have a center bolt and washer. Appears someone removed yours and didn’t replace it. You need to get a new one.

But your damper doesn’t look stock. The belt should be riding on the outer portion. Looks like someone added a “sandwich” style underdrive pulley.

To access the Opti, the hub can stay on the crank. The damper just gets taken off the hub. The damper was a loose fit on the hub when it left the factory, but 24 years later it is probably being held on for rust. Shoebox shows how to remove it with a 3-jaw puller.

http://shbox.com/1/pull_pulley.jpg

If I recall, he also has the specs for the crank hub center bolt/washer.

4th Gen LT1 F-Body Tech Aids

 

PS - looking closer at that picture of a non-stock setup, I suspect the hub bolt is there, it's just hidden by the U/D pulley that was added behind the stock damper. If it is an U/D pulley, get rid of it. They produce very little HP savings, because they are not driving a mechanical water pump. Cause more problems than they save.

 

i just discovered it is an under drive pulley, I had the distributor and water pump replaced 8 years ago by a shop and i wish they would have told me it was there because here in seattle in the winter you need lots of amps to run everything and at idle in stop and go traffic it would go dead. when they did all this work, i had them put a smaller pulley on the alternator and that helped. I was in the dark on this under drive pulley until NOW!

I can't find anyway of using a 3 jaw puller without destroying the damper. ANY IDEAS?

Thanks!

 

I have no way of knowing how tight the stock pulley fit is on the U/D pulley. See if you can apply pressure to the back of the stock pulley/damper with a lever. Try to limit contact to the inner metal ring on the damper. From the picture, the rubber ring that connects the inner ring to the outer ring already looks like it is deteriorated. Apply any pressure to the outer ring and you could break that rubber ring and destroy the damper. AS noted, the stock pulley/damper was actually loose enough to fall off when I removed the three bolts, when the car was only a couple years old.

Or try to wedge two thin screwdrivers between the two pulleys, one on each side. Still a risk to the rubber ring.

If you decide to delete the U/D pulley, make sure the three bolts that hold the stock damper on the hub are not so long that they stick out the back far enough to contact the Opti housing.

If you have an auto transmission, the low factory idle speed (550 RPM in gear) is not high enough to keep the system volts high enough at idle. Even with the manual trans (800 RPM) my ASP set came with an U/D crank pulley and an O/D alt pulley.

 

I got the damper off with 2 chisels. but, i'm having problems getting this dam UD pulley off, i tried a 3 jaw just couldn't make it work.

 

finally got it off with a 2 jaw puller.

thanks everyone!