A buddy of mine has a junk FB, and was planning to trade his front cover for some parts. I thought I was doing him a favor by zipping off the front pulley with my electric impact, so he could remove the rest of the cover easily. We recently had another local buddy turn up with a nearly blown motor, so we would like to compression test the engine in the junk car. Can we carefully pop the front pulley back in for the sake of compression testing? If the thrust bearings have fallen, how would I know? Can I tighten the front pulley, remove it again, and check for nicks at the base of the pulley to see if the thrust bearings or thrust washers have dropped?

 

If all you're doing is a non-running comp test, remove the bearings. Leave the spacer and the front counterweight, bolt on the cover disc for the front main bearing, install the e-shaft bolt to keep the counter weight on. You will need to remove the front cover to do this, but you can still do a comp test on an engine out of the car. Only fly in the opinment is you'll be testing a cold engine which can skew the actual readings.

It might be possible to simply install the e-shaft bolt but not tighten it down. The only danger I see either way is if the counterweight walks too much and hits the front cover. Not sure if that's possible or not.