In order to spray the cleaner on the shaft, you will have to completely remove the nut and gear though. You can't physically look in to the hole to see what you're doing without pulling the radiator first. How tough is it to get the gear and nut back on the shaft when you're fumbling around blind? I'm not arguing with the fact that you should clean the shaft, but it just seems that cleaning without completely removing the gear and nut is not really cleaning at all.

Anyway, the person who did my timing, who has done this many, many times, and has a pretty sharp 500+ HP 12V truck himself, said that it shouldn't be a problem if you just break the gear loose from the shaft. I just hope he's right.

I guess oil dripping off of the back side of the gear on to the larger diameter portion of the tapered shaft would really screw that theory up, but then again, there is no way to clean the backside of the gear without physically removing it. Then you chance dropping stuff down into the bottom of the timing cover.

 

The Miller kit is a bunch more money-I cannot remember exactly, but more.