I just went to find top dead center by tightening the bolt that goes through the Harmonic Balancer, and instead of turning over the motor, it kept pushing the harmonic balancer further and further in, so I stopped, because I assume this is wrong. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

It sounds like your harmonic balancer wasn't fully seated to begin with.

Somebody probably wanted an easy way to line up the pulleys and stopped tightening the HB when the pulleys were all plumb.



As far as it not turning the engine over...I assume the car is in neutral?

The car is in neutral. Does that matter? I haven't installed any pulleys yet. I torqued the HB down, and it was going past the little timing plate, so I stopped. I put white on the HB so I could see it easier with a timing light, but now it is so far on there I can't even see the white.

Something is wrong huh?

The correct torque will put it to where it needs to sit. Sounds like the previous person did not torque it enough.

It sounds like you have the small balancer and a timing cover for a large balancer.

If the car is not in neutral, you will be attempting to turn the engine over against the transmission and the rest of the drive train. Put the trans in neutral, and remove the spark plugs to have the least resistance to turn agains. Good luck.

There is no "adjustment" for how far the balancer goes on. It keeps going in until it bottoms agains the crankshaft timing chain gear inside the timing cover. Then it stops and that's it. Anything less than that means it wasn't on fully to begin with.

Try removing the spark plugs if you haven't already... No use fighting against the compression.