I took my engine out to put in a new cam and a bunch of other stuff...now I'm putting it back together. I used a puller/installer to put the harmonic balancer on, and I'm pretty sure it's on all the way. The trouble that I'm having is that now I'm trying to put the bolt on that goes directly in the middle of the balancer and holds the crank pulley on. With it going through the pulley, the washer, and the balancer, it wont screw into the crank.....I'm not sure what the deal is. Is my balancer not on all the way? I'm beginning to wonder if I should just go buy a longer bolt and say screw it...but that could be bad. Anybody have any clues?

 

If you have the other accessories still on the engine do the following. Hold the crank pulley in place where it would be if it were bolted on and take a look and see if the belt grooves line up with the other accessories pullies. This will tell you whether or not you have the balancer on far enough or not. If the balancer and pulley was on before with that bolt then it should all go back on with that same bolt.

 

AcSeb,

There are a few possibilities:

1. The balancer is NOT installed fully;

2. The bolt you are using is the wrong length (maybe they got mixed around during the project;

3. The crank threads are stripped;

4. The timing sprocket depth is incorrect, holding the balancer too far out.

Make sure the bolt is a 7/16-20 and is about 2¼" long. If the bolt is correct, get a 7/16-20 threaded rod and nut and thread the rod fully into the crank snout. Install your washer and a nut, and try to torque the nut to 65 ft/lb to make sure the balancer is fully seated. You might want to use an inspection mirror to assure that the keyways are correctly aligned and that the Woodruff key is not tipped in the keyway. If everything is aligned and the nut will torque to 65ft/lb, the balancer should be shouldered up to the crank snout/timing sprocket.

 

unless you used a thread protector most likely you damaged the threads when you pulled the dampner. try chaseing the threads and all should be well

 

Yep, that's exactly what happened, I messed up the threads right towards the front where it screws into first..