ABS Products Hydraulic Dampener Puller/Installer - Tool Of The Month

This is a tool that we hadn't thought much about before until we saw it in action. Removing the balancer from a V-8 engine, especially in the tight confines of a truck's engine compartment, can be difficult. Most of the manual pullers don't work all that well, and if your engine has been detonating while running then it's likely that the balancer has chattered on the crankshaft, making removal even more difficult. Re-installing that balancer with a block of wood and a sledgehammer isn't much fun either when the odds of smacking it straight onto the snout of the crank are 50 to 1.

Enter ABS Products' hydraulic dampener puller and installer tools. These babies make quick work of the job. Ten-ton hydraulic rams with slotted mounts will remove and re-install both three- and four-hole balancers, and the system can be run using your home air compressor with 100-psi feed. We tested both tools on The Big Block From Hell recently, after detonating the engine badly during dyno testing of a new nitrous system. The balancer had chattered on the crankshaft and galled the snout so badly that once the balancer was off, we had to send the crank out to have the divots in the snout repaired. The tool's 10-ton puller struggled to get the balancer off, but in the end it broke it free. Now imagine trying to pull that dampener off by hand!

1. The puller's (part number...        read full caption 1. The puller's (part number 5501) piston has a 1-5/8-inch stroke and comes with super strong black oxide bolts for attaching it to the balancer.	2. The puller is compact and...        read full caption 2. The puller is compact and takes up just 7 inches of room when assembled. At rest, the piston sits flush with the face of the puller, which is bolted to the front of the balancer.	3. The puller is slotted to...        read full caption 3. The puller is slotted to fit most bolt patterns. Hooking it to the provided hydraulic pump is as simple as connecting a single hydraulic line (inset).
4. Our kit came with several...        read full caption 4. Our kit came with several spacers, which we installed onto the T-handle in front of the ram. The spacers acted as an extension of the piston, which gave it more travel to press the balancer back onto the snout of the crank completely.