More often than not at this age the pulley has seized onto the timing belt drive cog on the crank. It can be very challenging if not entirely impossible to separate them.

The most successful method I've used it taking a steel mallet and tapping on one edge of the pulley, then the opposite edge (180 degrees). Get the thing to start rocking back and forth on the gear until you can walk it off. You may have to start hitting it hard enough to damage the pulley (although don't hammer it too hard cause you can hurt the crank) in which case you'll have to replace it, but you can get them cheap on Rock Auto so it's not the end of the world.

If it absolutely will not break free you'll have to cut the timing belt off and break the timing cover so you can pull the pulley and drive cog off together. Unfortunately, if they're stuck together this bad you won't be able to get them apart without damaging the gear so you'll need to replace that with the pulley and the timing cover. I've done this a couple times now and it seems to be a more and more common requirement.

 

More often than not at this age the pulley has seized onto the timing belt drive cog on the crank. It can be very challenging if not entirely impossible to separate them.

The most successful method I've used it taking a steel mallet and tapping on one edge of the pulley, then the opposite edge (180 degrees). Get the thing to start rocking back and forth on the gear until you can walk it off. You may have to start hitting it hard enough to damage the pulley (although don't hammer it too hard cause you can hurt the crank) in which case you'll have to replace it, but you can get them cheap on Rock Auto so it's not the end of the world.

If it absolutely will not break free you'll have to cut the timing belt off and break the timing cover so you can pull the pulley and drive cog off together. Unfortunately, if they're stuck together this bad you won't be able to get them apart without damaging the gear so you'll need to replace that with the pulley and the timing cover. I've done this a couple times now and it seems to be a more and more common requirement.

Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it. I’m not a mechanic but I have worked on other vehicles I’ve owned. But this car keeps giving me trouble on anything I do to it. My buddy said that I should sell it and get something else but I really like this car and I’ve already put time and money into it because I want to keep it and keep improving it. Right now it’s my daily but would like to get something else so that I can take my time and get quality parts. Thanks again

 

When I did my timing belt a few years ago, I had to destroy the old crank pulley to get it off. I broke it enough to get a puller on it, then after about an hour with the impact and a torch, it came free. Once off, I used emery cloth on the shaft to clean it up and put a new pulley on it. I prefered to put the new pulley on anyway because it looked like there was already a chip out of part of it before I started this job.

 

I did this timing belt / water pump on my current 3g gt spyder a month ago and I destroyed mine as well getting it off. I didn't use a puller but I had to smash it enough on the sides to break pieces off it. Bought a new one and all was well.

 

I've always pulled mine by gently tapping with a rubber mallet and wiggling it.