Separated my balancer

My plan was to strip down the front of my 3.4 and prep it for a new TB, and WP. I picked up the tool in the picture to hold the crank pulley. As I applied force,the center broke free. The center section looks have been held in by some kind of rubber?

I assume it would be frowned upon to run the pulley without this center section?

Note to self: buy a chain wrench...

 

Wow. I'm guessing without it wouldn't work harmonically? Lol.

I ruined a HB using one of those chain wrenches...

 

Yea, I'm not a fan a a chain wrench because of the marks it leaves. Figured I'd done the right thing getting the SST for once...

Turns out my impact was plenty strong to get the bolt off...

With the engine in the truck, I've always used a breaker bar and layed it on the frame rails and bumped the starter... However, since the engine is on a stand, this method doesn't really work..

 

Better you found this little issue now rather than driving down the road .

If you ripped it loose from the rubber it was not long for the world