stupid harmonic balancer. im pissed.

So, I tackled the challenge of changing the balancer today, because mine was wobbling. Took me 4 hours. Kept breaking everything. I made a tool to hold the pulley, broke everything off in the balancer. so then I used the bump method. Worked great. Balancer came right off with no puller. finally got the other one on with an installer, but then still kept spinnin everthing. Torqued it as tight as I could get it, bent and almost broke more bolts. and now I have a terrible oil leak. I'm rather angry. You see the old balancer is cracked, don't know if that happened when I bumped it or what. But I'm pretty upset bout the leak now.

 

Any pictures of the leak?

 

Pictures of all the stuff you broke?

 

Probably damaged the front seal with the crack in the balancer.

 

that's the tool I made to hold stuff, it was all bent up too. broke the two small bolts. Used the longer bolts with some sockets on em, started bendin and twisting them

 

Time to take it back off and replace the front seal.

 

didn't feel the need to replace the seal, because I just had it replaced about 8 months ago

 

Ok then why the new oil leak?

 

The crack instantly trashed the seal. You kind of lost me with the bump thing you mean using the engine to loosen the bolt? If that is the case that did not crack the pulley it is a time honored method. If it spun, the key way fell out when you removed the pulley or you cracked the pulley with the key way off center. The pulley is a size fit it is not pressed on it should slide right off once the bolt is removed.

 

well piss.. I tore the thing up.

 

tore up the new balancer to

 

Bump the started method to loosen bolt... apparently it just pushed into the key, the key didn't go into the slot, and using an installer, which I thought was always needed, it just pushed it into it, Like the key was pushed up a little.

 

how to you deal with the woodruff key? how to remove it, how to get the balancer on it and in the groove?

 

well,, I finally got it out. The seal actually looked fine. but there were lots of metal pieces from where I trashed the new balancer. The woodruff key I guess flipped up somehow and just trashed it when I used the installer to push it on. any tips to keep this from happening again?

 

@Alfuh you just did yours help him out

 

i dont know wtf he did to his lol, I took my serpentine belt off and used my Ridgid impact wrench and the crank bolt came right off, used my jaw puller to pop it off and then it just slid right back on lol

 

What grade are those bolts? You should have at least 8.8 preferably 10.9 for that sort of application...

 

My guess is when the old balancer came off, the key may have slid out of the groove a little (since it's a half circle), and then when you put the new one on, the edge of the key was sticking up just enough to catch on the new balancer, got flipped up, and then got wedged in between the balancer and the timing chain cover, which might explain why the groove on the newly trashed balancer looks like it does. And, the key may have pushed on the oil seal enough to cause it to leak, since you say the seal looks fine. I put a balancer on a Ford recently at work, and it slid on enough to put the bolt back in and tighten down. An actual puller would have pulled that thing off with no fuss. Advance auto should have a rental puller set.

 

Sounds like he got himself in a mess

 

The pulley should need no more than your hands to install if you have to force it some thing is wrong. More than likely you pushed the key way up as you put the pulley back on then cranked it down with the bolt don't feel bad I'm sure you are not the first.