So, I'm about to go crazy, my project to get a 350 in the bird has been terrible. to make a long story short the motor is almost done except I can't get a balancer on the crank, the balancer goes on half way untill it gets to difficult to keep going (we are using the proper installation tool) and when we take it off I can see that alot of material has been removed from only one side of the inside of the balancer. this has happened twice now, I really don't know what to do next, the thing that bothers me is the motor has a Scat crank in it, could the crank be messed up? Any suggestions? I've pretty much resigned myself to taking to the local shop, though I really really don't want too.

Thanks
GPman

 

You can either get some emery cloth and go over the end of the crank snout, or get a wheel cyclinder hone and clean up the inside of the balancer hub. You want it to be a tight fit, and many we've installed are just that, very tight even when using the balancer installing tool and a big 24" long cresent wrench to crank it on it's still very tight. Get a mic and measure the inside ID of the balancer and OD of the crank snout and just be sure not to take off too much material, any slop and you'll have problems in the future. Is the keyway fully seated in the crank snout? usually you have to tap then into place with a hard rubber mallet to get them all the way down on new cranks since the tolerances are pretty tight.

Dont think of the Scat as a junk crank either, there are a ton of guys making huge power using scat products.

 

What crank did you get? Are you reusing the old harmonic balancer off of the old crank, or is it a new one? Just asking cus im getting a stock replacement Scat Crank for my 350 rebuild.

Where is the metal being removed from? If its the keyway, you might have to take emery and remove some materal from it, but just a tiny bit.