What's the trick to the duck foot tool to remove harmonic balancer?

[maillemaker]

I am removing the harmonic balancer to replace the front oil seal.

What is the trick to using a duck foot to remove the harmonic balancer?

Neither the flat nor pointy adapter will fit into the hole of the balancer to bottom out on the crank.

So, I put the crank bolt back in a few turns, and tried to bear against it with the flat adapter. This just screwed the crank bolt in as I turned the duck foot shaft. I did not try the pointy adapter on the crank bolt.

If I try no adapter and no crank bolt, the duck foot shaft just threads into the crank, achieving nothing.

So what is the trick to get the thing to bear against the crank so I can pull off the balancer?

 

[RAU03MACH]

Should be the tapered one center and the 2 bolt like you have them
Tight and crank it down

 

[maillemaker]

Should be the tapered one center and the 2 bolt like you have them
Tight and crank it down

I tried this, but it appears the tapered cap does not bottom out on the crank. Someone suggested using a socket that fits through the HB and bottoms out on the crank. I will try that.

 

[maillemaker]

My first problem was I did not realize there was a washer in there. Pulled that out, and felt around, must have been feeling the counterbore in the crank snout.

The opening in the HB is HUGE (like at least 1.5" in diameter) so there was no need for the socket. But anyway I used the socket and pulled the old HB off. Got the old seal out and installed a new one. Then re-installed a new HB. Job done.