928NOOBIE

One of the best things I did for my engine. My balancer was totally shot and hard vibrations happened after 4-4500 rpm...I ignorantly drove it too long in that condition. Don't be like 928NOOBIE.....

SeanR

Here's the one I pulled off my car. Had a bad vibration and Gregs damper cleared that right up. Replaced a good many of these with his unit and recommend it to everyone. I'm sure he's got a good waiting list for them right now.

SwayBar

Commander Worf,

Thank you for posting the pictures and the story, it is all truly fascinating as I've never seen anything like it before.

Longshot:

Would it be possible to remove a stuck damper by doing the opposite - apply dry-ice to the crank snout to shrink it a tiny bit?

worf928

That’s a good idea. Don’t know if it would work. Worth a try. Last time I went looking for a dry ice source it wasn’t encouraging.

worf928

That’s nasty. I’ve not seen one that rotted. The 2-piece one from the OP shows no dry rot.

GregBBRD

Actually, the last time I had hubs made, my CNC guy lost his mind and ordered two "sticks" of material, instead of just one.
For a change, I've got ample amounts of hubs.


The two boxes were full, when we started with this "batch".



I'll talk to Mary and see if she's got enough margin to be able to get Roger to sell my dampers, so everyone can order them from him, too.

GT6ixer

So do we feel that this issue is about to become prevalent enough to warrant the inclusion of the HB as part of the list of items that should be replaced during the TB/WP job?

Oh, and BTW I had to look this one up..

bureau13

I'm coming up on another timing belt job I guess. I'm currently around 4-4.5 years, driven frequently but not a huge amount of miles. Sounds like this is something I should plan to get (I'm already going to need new cam sprockets I'm almost positive, although I will likely keep my Guardian water pump). Not going to be a super cheap job this time (then again is it ever?)

Chalkboss

Worf has a commanding use of English. This job has moved up to top level for me. Once you understand what the rubber does and the condition of rubber parts on these old cars it's like fixing a heart arrythmia
.

Geza

This would most likely not work. Both the thermal conductivity and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the aluminum hub are significantly higher than that of the steel crank. If you were able to cool down the crank, the aluminum hub, through thermal conduction, would cool down almost as fast, and, since the CTE is larger with the aluminum, the hole in the hub would shrink even more than the diameter of the steel crank stub, creating an even tighter fit.

GregBBRD

I think it is important to realize I'm not tossing on crankshaft dampers on everything that rolls into the door.....far from that. I doubt we install new dampers on 5% of the cars we work on.

I only replace a damper when the rubber is deteriorated (like in Sean's picture), if these is an engine vibration which nothing else will cure, or when I build a new high performance engine.

Yes, eventually all of the dampers will deteriorate and need to be replaced, but I encourage people to spend their money on the most important things, first.

khalloudy

Looking at the picture, I see oil residue on the back of the balancer and inside where the rubber meets the metal is looks like liquid damage and seepage that made a channel (seen both on the metal and the rubber piece).

I wonder if HOT oil mated with centrifugal forces could have (over time) damaged the glue to the point it was weak enough (and separated enough in certain areas) that the g-forces overcame the remainder of the rubber causing separation. That is what I see from the picture... as an engineer. Just speculating and wondering... not that the rubber is pretty much a piece of rock after all these years...

skpyle

Oh...I was looking at this like a Russian 'scorched earth' policy. All or nothing. I will keep this in mind for the pipe dream 'Iron Maiden' in my head...