I have the water pump off the engne and need to reinstall the water pump but will need to take the harmonic balancer off. Can I turn the crank independent of the cam gears with out hurting anything? Without the belt on there I'm stuck.

Also what size mm nut is on the HB, and what's the trick needed to hold the HB while getting the center nut off..

Thanks

 

An impact is usually needed to remove the nut. I think the nut is a 32MM.

 

Okay,
After replacing the water pump, I had put the timing belt back on where I took it off on the cams, and I did not move the crank. The car strated and ran but I got a code P0011 which is advanced timing code. I accessed the timing belt and crank and with the belt on I turned the crank till I found the chisel mark on one of the teeth on the crack cog. I noticed that the timing marks on the cams, which are nothing more that blue dots on the side of the cam sprocket. I then took the belt off and proceeded to turn the cams until I lined the cam timing mark up witht the TB cover notch, I did nave to rotate the crank one complete turn in order to allow the cams to reach their timing marks. I lined the chisel mark up with the left side of what lookes like a "U" on what I think is the oil pump. The left side of the vertical part of the "U" is higher than the right side and it is at a bit of an angle to the right about 5 degrees. I assume this is the timing mark for the crank. I then put the TB back on all of the sprockets.

Now the engine truns over but does not fire off. What did I do wrong. I did notice that before I took the TB off, with the crack lined up with the oil pump rib, the cam marks were about 1/4 of a turn off of the timing notch in the cover?

What did I do wrong and how do I correct it?

 

I think when you reset it the second time you were confused and were only 180 off when trying to read the timing marks.
I hope you did not bend valves.