[Healeys] Harmonic Balancer

[Ron Osowski]

Don,

Here's one instance.  Speaking from experience, I would say buy a new one 
and put it on now while the engine is out of the car.  Earlier this year I 
was running my BJ8 home from the Kaiser Devereaux car show following Marion 
Brantley at about 70 - 75 mph, when all of a sudden it sounded like I had 
run over an empty coffee can on the highway.  I slowed down, stopped and 
looked under the hood, checked oil, radiator, etc., but could not see 
anything wrong.  I decided to try driving on, and everything seemed to be 
OK.  It was not until we got back home and driving slow that I could hear a 
peculiar grinding noise like brakes with no lining rubbing.  Upon further 
examination, but not until after my lady companion asked "Parnelli, what's 
that shiny thing down there" that the problem became evident.  The pulley 
and balancer hub were intact on the crankshaft, but the balancing mass and 
remains of the rubber ring were sitting on the chassis cross member and 
bouncing against the hub.

I thought it might be feasible to pry it back on and get more use out of it, 
when I discovered that the ring had worn a perilous amount out of the brake 
line running across the chassis cross member.  This is the line rom the 
master cyclinder to the 3-way coupling, so if that goes there'e nothing more 
than the emergency brakes to stop you.  Needless to say, 36800 is laid up 
until I get the time and money to fix it.  It appears that the front of the 
engine must be lifted to do this, inspite of what the shop manual says.

Ron Osowski

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Spidell" <bspidell at comcast.net>
To: "Don Day" <fsufan1952 at yahoo.com>
Cc: <healeys at autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Healeys] Harmonic Balancer


> FWIW, the balancer on my BJ8 was cracked and looked tired but we used it 
> anyway when we rebuilt the engine about 80K miles ago. Still running fine.
>
> The risk is the balancer coming apart, but I've never heard of that 
> happening.
>
>
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Don Day" <fsufan1952 at yahoo.com>
> To: healeys at autox.team.net
> Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 10:28:20 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: [Healeys] Harmonic Balancer
>
> I am getting my 67 BJ-8 motor cleaned up to paint before I put it back in 
> the car.I noticed the harmonic Balancer looked a little tired.The rubber 
> looks dried up,it's still all there but it has cracks.My question to the 
> list is,what damage would be done to leave it alone?It looks as though it 
> would be a job to remove it and a replacement is around $350.
> As always any and all info would be helpful.
>
> Thanks Don
> 67BJ-8 still under re-construction
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