jeelanik Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 My car steering got hard. I took it to a mechanic and he said the harmonic balancer is missing. Is it so fragile that it can just fall off. He is charging $250 for the part. Is this for real. What is harmonic balancer and how I can pro-actively maintain it in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrach Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 Time for a new mechanic. Part price is right, but it your harmonic balancer is missing you'd have more problems than just steering. Harmonic balancer is the large pulley on the bottom front of the engine at the center. My car steering got hard. I took it to a mechanic and he said the harmonic balancer is missing. Is it so fragile that it can just fall off. He is charging $250 for the part. Is this for real. What is harmonic balancer and how I can pro-actively maintain it in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swi66 Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 Time for a new mechanic. Part price is right, but it your harmonic balancer is missing you'd have more problems than just steering. Harmonic balancer is the large pulley on the bottom front of the engine at the center. I actually had the nut loosen so the balancer wobbled enough to damage the end of the crankshaft. Had to replace the motor.............. swi66 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrach Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I understand that can be a problem; but this is a MISSING pulley. Something here is lost in the translation. I actually had the nut loosen so the balancer wobbled enough to damage the end of the crankshaft. Had to replace the motor.............. swi66 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 a good machine shop can repair the end of your crank instead of buying an entire motor. my friend had the same thing happen. any shop will tell you "new engine". but get it towed to a machine shop and they'll fix it, probably with the motor in the car. in my experience they are generally much more honest and are great resources for mechnics. a mechanic at a shop doesn't want to waste time with that though, they just want your money even if there's a cheaper way. i'm not sure if your crank pulley wasn't tight enough or if it actually failed. if you're concerned about reliability as i am because i drive way too many miles, i'd consider the following. they can be very expensive new, as they will be a dealer only part. and then you're paying alot of money for something that still has that stupid ring in it. probably won't fail if you get a new one, but it definitely won't fail if it didn't have that rubber ring in it. if it is truely a harmonic balancer and not just a crank pulley, then the option i would choose is to have a shop make you a pulley. that's what i'm doing for my XT6 (150 - 200 dollars). crank pulleys are just solid metal pulleys. harmonic balancers have a thin ring of rubber inset between two (an inner and outer with the rubber ring separating them) metal parts to make up the harmonic balancer. this rubber ring can fail and the balancer can either wobble, eat up your belt or it can even slip. slip is really fun, the inner ring turns with the crank as it's rigidly bolted to it. but the outer ring will slip on the rubber ring and cause charging and overheating problems because the belt isn't turning the pump and alternator fast enough. if you suspect this, mark the blancer with chalk and drive around some. the mark will no longer line up across the rubber ring. or a balancer can completely fail where the outer ring completely separates from the inner. for around 200...maybe less, a shop can make a solid metal pulley in place of your harmonic balancer. have them make it of aluminum and it will greatly reduce the weight and add some gas mileage and horsepower to your motor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frag Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 a good machine shop can repair the end of your crank instead of buying an entire motor. my friend had the same thing happen. any shop will tell you "new engine". but get it towed to a machine shop and they'll fix it, probably with the motor in the car. in my experience they are generally much more honest and are great resources for mechnics. a mechanic at a shop doesn't want to waste time with that though, they just want your money even if there's a cheaper way. i'm not sure if your crank pulley wasn't tight enough or if it actually failed. if you're concerned about reliability as i am because i drive way too many miles, i'd consider the following. they can be very expensive new, as they will be a dealer only part. and then you're paying alot of money for something that still has that stupid ring in it. probably won't fail if you get a new one, but it definitely won't fail if it didn't have that rubber ring in it. if it is truely a harmonic balancer and not just a crank pulley, then the option i would choose is to have a shop make you a pulley. that's what i'm doing for my XT6 (150 - 200 dollars). crank pulleys are just solid metal pulleys. harmonic balancers have a thin ring of rubber inset between two (an inner and outer with the rubber ring separating them) metal parts to make up the harmonic balancer. this rubber ring can fail and the balancer can either wobble, eat up your belt or it can even slip. slip is really fun, the inner ring turns with the crank as it's rigidly bolted to it. but the outer ring will slip on the rubber ring and cause charging and overheating problems because the belt isn't turning the pump and alternator fast enough. if you suspect this, mark the blancer with chalk and drive around some. the mark will no longer line up across the rubber ring. or a balancer can completely fail where the outer ring completely separates from the inner. for around 200...maybe less, a shop can make a solid metal pulley in place of your harmonic balancer. have them make it of aluminum and it will greatly reduce the weight and add some gas mileage and horsepower to your motor. Good explanation that would account for why your steering became «hard» cause the power steering pump is driven from this crank pulley with harmonic balancer. One thing though, it could not cause overheating cause the water pump is cam belt driven. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrach Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 I didn't check which model car, but a wrecking yard Harmonic Balancer can be had for much less than that. Give me the model and I'll check and pull one if I can find one. Drop me a PM if you like. $30 plus shipping sound like a fair price for a used one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richierich Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 Did you get charged $250 for the harmonic balancer, or $250 for fixing the problem including installing the harmonic balancer? A new harmonic balancer lists for $110 dollars. A good mechanic will take the timing belt off. Repair the crank, install a new woodrift key and hopefully a new crank seal. Sometimes the crank gear is damaged because it has to be chiseled off to get it off the damaged crank. If you paid $250 for a front crank pulley, you got ripped off and should call the better business bureau. If you paid $250 for getting it fixed right, you got a steal, because other less knowledgible mechanics may have told you, needed a new crank. If he just put a new harmonic balancer on, you are in jeopardy of having it happen again. It needs to be fixed correctly. Even if it takes adding metal to the crank and then having it ground back off. Not all crank are fixible, every situation is different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harborseal55 Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 I just replaced the timing belt on my 96 Legacy 2.2, and the crank pully appears to be just that - a stamped metal pully and not a harmonic balancer. I don't know how others do this, but I used a "chain wrench" to hold the pully upon loosening and reinstalling the pully because the retaining bolt needs to be really tight (I think it required a torque of something like 100 ft-lbs), and I don't see how one could achieve this without holding the pully with a chain wrench. The original bolt may have never been tightened enough. This is a large bolt that needs to be installed to a much higher torque than many cars. FYI - It seemed like it could be easy to damage the pully by just strapping the chain wrench on it by marking up the belt grooves, so I cut a piece of bicycle inner tube and wrapped it around the pully, and used a small 2-inch length of 3/4-inch dia. of copper tubing that I cut and pounded flat so that the chain wrench "teeth" would dig into the copper and rubber instead of the pully surface. Worked great, didn't slip at all, and left the pully unscathed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrach Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 FYI - It seemed like it could be easy to damage the pully by just strapping the chain wrench on it by marking up the belt grooves, so I cut a piece of bicycle inner tube and wrapped it around the pully, and used a small 2-inch length of 3/4-inch dia. of copper tubing that I cut and pounded flat so that the chain wrench "teeth" would dig into the copper and rubber instead of the pully surface. Worked great, didn't slip at all, and left the pully unscathed. great tip! thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 that's pretty sweet with the copper pipe. there's no way to jam the flexplate with a socket extension like you can on older soobs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sasquatch Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 I just replaced the timing belt on my 96 Legacy 2.2, and the crank pully appears to be just that - a stamped metal pully and not a harmonic balancer. I don't know how others do this, but I used a "chain wrench" to hold the pully upon loosening and reinstalling the pully because the retaining bolt needs to be really tight (I think it required a torque of something like 100 ft-lbs), and I don't see how one could achieve this without holding the pully with a chain wrench. The original bolt may have never been tightened enough. This is a large bolt that needs to be installed to a much higher torque than many cars. FYI - It seemed like it could be easy to damage the pully by just strapping the chain wrench on it by marking up the belt grooves, so I cut a piece of bicycle inner tube and wrapped it around the pully, and used a small 2-inch length of 3/4-inch dia. of copper tubing that I cut and pounded flat so that the chain wrench "teeth" would dig into the copper and rubber instead of the pully surface. Worked great, didn't slip at all, and left the pully unscathed. if you're facing the motor on the left hand side in back of the motor near the tranny is a plastic cover, you take that off and you can lock the crank so it doesn't spin (I used a screwdriver in there) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quocfixescars Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 What uncanny timing?! I just had the exact same thing happen on my 93 Legacy. Anyway, I plan on doing the timing belt and water pump while I have everything off. Would it be best to remove everything then have my car towed to a machine shop to place a "woodrift" key into the crank? My harmonic balancer is screwed up too, should I get a new one to show the machine shop first? You guys are the greatest, I was afraid I was going to have to get a new motor! Do you have any clue as to what happened? I suspect that it was because I had put the belts on too tight, but that was 5 months ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffbuh Posted October 12, 2010 Share Posted October 12, 2010 I couldn't figure out how to start a new thread. How do I do that? My Harmonic Balancer came off, and left the crankshaft threads stripped. I'm planning on using Time Sert or Heli Coil to fix the problem. I'm not sure if the Time Sert will seat in far enough before seating. I couldn't seem to find any thread on USMB describing someone doing this. Usually people have a key problem - mine was still in there unharmed - just the threads inside got stripped - that's where the damage happened. Has anyone out there done this before (Heli-Coil or Time Sert in Crankshaft)? I will be using new timing gear, new Harmonic Balancer (should I get aluminum pulley, or stick with rubber-separated), new belt - drill, insert "sert", use blue loctite, tighten down to maybe 135 ft/lbs. 1997 2.2L Subaru Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davebugs Posted October 12, 2010 Share Posted October 12, 2010 Now I see the new thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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