not good - should just come off by hand.  has the car been worked on
before?  signs of other damage?  rust?  to get it off, use the puller if
you can get the hooks behind it.  you'll probably need to replace the
belt guide by this stage.  be careful not to damage the crank!  use a
blank in the crank hole to prevent the puller driver doing anything
unintended.

regarding the seal, unless the oil's leaking real bad, i'd try the
"leave it alone" solution.  i say this based on an experience i had a
couple of years ago.  i used to work as a mechanic, so doing this kind
of job is not a problem, but you know how it is, busy with your day job,
come home, last thing you want to do is crawl under the car.  long story
short, main seal at the flywheel end, oil running out like crazy, bought
the seals, scheduled to do the work.  but the same time i was
determining the cause and seriousness of the leak ready to order parts,
i was under the car, so changed the oil with some castrol i had in the
garage.  i'd been motorcraft "semi synthetic" 5w-30 based on some "bob
is the oil guy" reviews and it's very low price at woolmort.  but since
i was under the car anyway, i figured the castrol was a good flush prior
to doing the seal work, then i'd start again clean and fresh with
another change after the work, just to be sure.  two weeks later, the
parts have come, i'm clearing up the driveway ready for surgery, i get
under the car, and there's no oil running out of the seal any more!  i
clean the bell housing again, [there's a little smear] and decide i'm
leaving it one more week.  go back under again, just the tiniest hint of
leakage, but nothing that would ever drip like it was doing regularly
before.  and so here we are 2 years later, not a single new drop on the
driveway!

bottom line, don't change the seal unless you really have to.  the
"factory" way to change the seal is to strip.  the "usual" way is to
hook it out.  apart from the pita factor, sealing surfaces can be
damaged by hooks and the car will now never not leak a little.  if it's
not leaking bad enough to contaminate the timing belt, there's no real
harm from a little leakage, and maybe it can be contained as above.

What Jim and TeGGeR® said, plus the sprocket should really come off by hand.
Heck, it should slide off all by itself when you don't want it to!  If this
area has been worked on before, perhaps someone got the key in there crooked
and jammed the sprocket on over the top, the sprocket is otherwise damaged
or your initial attempts have gotten it cocked on the crankshaft.  Suspect
that something is damaged or at least not right, and try not to damage any
more.  Despite Jim's probably good advice to use Castrol, I would want to
get the sprocket off now, to see what is what up with it.

Earle

Thanks for the tip on the oil type. I'm not trying to replace the seal
on the cam shaft, I'm trying to get to the one on the crank. The timing
belt sprocket that sits behind the crank pulley (aka harmonic balancer)
is the one that I can't get off.

Thanks again.

jim beam wrote: