I got my hands on a pulley puller so I could finally replace that front main seal. I tried using a prybar to work the loosened pulley off but I couldn't get it to move without putting a lot of English on it and I didn't want to risk cracking the oil pump front cover.
3 jaw pulley puller-AutoZone loan a tool program.
Looks like this.
Just take the puller and hook the legs on the pulley and get the big screw on your crank pulley bolt. The forum says to have the crank pulley bolt threaded in a tad and to place the puller legs on the 2nd or 3rd ridges of the crank pulley rather than the first.
Use a 13mm socket to crank on the pulley...
until the puller pops it free. You'll be able to see the crank pulley as it gets backed off the crank while you turn the pulley puller.
Front main oil seal. Part#13510-53J10
The oil seal has two sides that are different and it has to be placed in a specific way so make sure you get it right the first time. This is the side that goes in towards the engine, notice the big grooves...
and this is the side that goes outward toward the front of the car.
I first tried to remove the old main seal with a small flathead screwdriver, be careful not to ding or scrape the crank says the FSM. I couldn't really get it out with this small screwdriver. This made me very uncomfortable when I couldn't get it out because I know this is a sensitive area on the engine and I didn't want to damage anything or mess this up. I tried to work the screwdriver around the seal and then tried to pry out the outer edges but only managed to tear it slightly.
It started to come apart after I ripped it
After trying that I got a prybar and in a clockwise motion was able to wedge the main seal out one side at a time...
until it popped out.
I took the new seal and oiled it up and inserted it on the crank.
The FSM says to use a seal driver or an appropriate tool to install the new seal which I didn't have so I just used the old seal. After getting the new front main seal in place, I positioned the old seal directly on top of it and used a small hammer to pop it into place. These seals are very hard so it was quite solid for the poundometer to do it's thing.
Got it in, checked it to see if it was seated correctly and lined up. Good to go.
Now is a perfect time to clean this area which is hard to get to with the crank pulley on.
I would advise anyone who attempts this to place a piece of metal between your crank pulley bolt and the puller screw to keep this from happening to your crank pulley bolt when you turn the puller screw. It dug into my crank pulley bolt slightly.
I put the crank pulley back on. I was worried about mounting the pulley back on...what about the timing marks, how is this pulley going to get back to it's original position? What I hadn't realized was that the crank pulley has a indention on it that matches up with the crank so it only mounts on one way which is how it remains in it's original position so problem solved. I'm going to get a lightweight underdrive pulley so I just barely put the stock pulley back on without torquing it down.
I was very nervous about doing this so if anyone who has done it before sees something that I did wrong then please let me know.