Well. Where do I start? I’ve achieved more in an hour today working on the engine than I have all year!

The problematic pulley was still putting up a fight and refusing to come off by conventional means. I’d already resigned myself to cutting the pulley into pieces in order to get it off. Today I cut off the front of the pulley (parallel to the flywheel) in order to make a lateral cut into the pulley in line with the crankshaft. I couldn’t quite cut all the way through, but I was able to cut enough to insert a crowbar and give it a few hefty whacks with a club hammer. This loosened its grip on the crankshaft and with a few more whacks from behind, it was off!

 

 

The next job was the flywheel gib key. Spurred on by the success with the pulley I put to use the flywheel key puller that I had purchased several weeks ago on ebay.

I had to use a flat file to square up and remove some of the back of the gib key in order to slide the puller over the head of the key. To my amazement a few turns on the bolts and the key started to slide out very easily!

 

I have read before about D-types that have a pulley fitted, being easier to extract the flywheel key from, as the pulley provides a little protection from the elements. Either way, it was very easy. You hear horror stories of key heads snapping off or being rusted solid in the keyway and all sorts of difficult and time consuming solutions to get them out. For once luck is on my side. As if all that wasn’t enough, the flywheel now rotates freely around the crankshaft, so I hope to be able just to twist and slide it straight off. Fingers crossed!