No Love, and no Joy !! Part 2 of ??

I had some time today and this evening, so I thought I would add to the story.

I could not remove this "LJ coupling" because it it is stuck on the shaft and the jaws of the gear puller could not fit between the coupler and the pump mounting plate. Also the plate cannot be removed because the coupler needs to come off first.

Picture showing how the jaw cannot fit into the gap:


So I removed the arms/jaws from the puller tool and took them to my bench grinder. I only wanted to remove enough material so that the jaws could slip into the gap. Too much would compromise the strength of the tool. By the way, this tool cost $7, so if I broke it, it would not be a tremendous loss.

Picture showing how 1 jaw now fits into the gap:


I remounted the arms and started to pull.

Picture of the puller installed on the coupler:


Before very much pressure could be applied, the entire tool slipped off. I reinstalled it and it slipped off again. Looking carefully at it, the jaws had bent under the pressure. SO, this solution failed.

I posted a request for help on a bulletin board of handy guys that I admire and received some good advice. One was to try a penetrating solvent called "Kroil" instead of the Liquid Wrench. Sounds good, but I don't have any and am not sure where to find it, but will look.

The second piece of advice that sounded promising was to drill and tap holes in the broken coupler and use a different kind of puller tool. I have a steering wheel puller tool and it uses threaded bolts instead of arms and jaws. Not being good at drilling metal I was a bit skeptical as to whether or not this chunk of metal would be too formidable. So I took the OTHER coupler, that is being replaced, out to my shop and drill press. In a short time I was able to drill a hole in it, then enlarge it a little at a time.

I am pretty confident now that I can drill into the coupler that needs to be removed. I have a neighbor with a tap and die set, and I think he'll be happy to tap the holes for me. The only thing left is to carefully lay out where the holes will go. I removed the bolt from the cross bar of the puller and eyeballed it. Layout should not be a problem.

Since Thanksgiving is coming up, I won't have time to finish up this week. I should have that part removed by Monday or Tuesday of next week, though.