acermcgraw

Alright guys so over the last few days i have had a lot of ups and downs. I took the advice given here and went and purchased the harmonic balancer, brand new from my local autos parts store.

The only time i had to try and install it was when i got home , by that time it was of course dark. I thought the only one wouldn't be to hard to get off, i was wrong. I had my roommate drive me down to auto zone to get a puller. They told me they could just rent me a puller so i was stoked. So they pulled out a professional quality Chrysler standard puller. it didn't look dead on, but since i had been working in the dark, how was i to really know.

I got it back to the house and needless to say this was not the correct puller. The next morning i called in sick and went down and bought a 15 dollar universal puller. I mounted it to the balancer and began to pull it out. IT was literally the hardest thing i have ever done on a car, it took me a good 2 hours of muscle straining and hand hammering to finally get the dam thing off.

As soon as i had it in hand i matched it up with the new part and except for minor differences, the parts had the same dimensions and size. And looked like it would fit well. IT didn't. There was absolutely no way in hell to push it in to the hole. i started to think it was the wrong part for sure so i got out my measuring device and measured every thing, it all checked out. So confident i was working with right piece i rigged and old scissor jack against the truck and proceeded to press the darn thing on. After a good three hours of slow movement, it was about half way on.

I though now would be a good time to put the front main bolt back in in the hopes that it might help me press it in some more (now the jack rig was just bending the metal i had it braced against and pushing the engine back instead of moving the balancer) The bolt would not even thread, it looked as though in my haste to get the balancer pulled i had some how flattened the first couple of threads inside the crankshafts bolt hole. And this in turn had messed up the bolt itself.

I have now ordered a new bolt which i will pick up today, i might even call a mechanic to see if they might have any tricks up their sleeves i don't know about.

MY questions are, for anyone who has done this job is this just par for the course or am i facing something else? did the vibration do this? do i need a different part? am i doing something wrong? any help or brainstorming at this point would be more than appreciated, i know this post is long but thanks for reading it.

BowtieGuy3

Go down to the parts store and see if they have a harmonic balancer rovover/installer. Makes life WAY easier with balancers. I haven't done so personally, but I usually shop around for a performance/race version of a critical part before I buy a stock replacement, just to ensure longevity. Well, longevity and doing the same job over a few times kinda pisses me off. Fluidampr (www.fluidampr.com) has a great pro balancer installation kit for about $130.

BlueXJ

The only one I have changed came off pretty easy and was replaced pretty easy. It was not a Jeep though it was a BMW 325 so I really have nothing that will help you much. I thought I was gonna have a hard time getting it on so bought a crankshaft end bolt that was a 1/2" too long to help pull it on but never had to use it.

acermcgraw

OH well, the harmonic balancer is now installed after a week of down time and it did not fix the issue. I am still getting the noise, however the vibration is gone so the balancer did have to be done for sure.

Now with the vibration gone, the sound is even more loud and imposing. It really feels like whatever it is, it's about to come apart at high speeds and cut me to shreds. I think i will take another look at the flywheel , or maybe i will just pull the oil pan off and make sure its not a rod?

I have just never had a rod that has not been a consistent noise. So i am not looking forward to doing something like that for no reason. Any more spitballing or troubleshooting would be greatly appriciated.

THANKS EVERYONE.