Harmonic balancer loose

[ABADASP]

Noticed last night that the bolt on the harmonic balancer was loose. The harmonic balancer had moved forward and cut a strand off of the belt. It has an oil leak on the front seal now. Has this happened to any one and was the crank damaged.This is on a 98 RT/10. Thanks

 

[RedGTS]

Lots of them have come loose, many with virtually no miles on them. Apparently some of the factory techs just don't torque them properly (250 ft lbs?). Dodge should have done a recall to check them all out. I don't know if you have an extended warranty or not, but if your car has low miles I'd insist that Dodge cover the repairs.

 

[viper spray]

Has the motor been worked on lately?

 

[ABADASP]

Stock motor 13000 miles still under warranty (extended) just hope the crank and block are not damaged.

 

[Schulmann]

Have a look on this:

I bought an ACR 00 (no AC) with 2000mi on it in April.
The car was looking 100% new.
The only thing that I noticed on the car was the worn belt.
So I replaced it myself. Then while replacing the belt I noticed a 1/4 inch cut on the crankshaft puley. With a fil I fixed that too.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to install a Roe SC.
During the installation it is recommended to pin the harmonic balancer. So I was going to pin this staff and noticed something was missing .... IT WAS MY CRANKSHAFT BOLT !!!! I ran 4000 mi without the bolt ! The cut was due to the bolt that span off !

I got a new bolt and fixed the harmonic balancer back to the crankshaft I have tell you that it moved off about 1/2 inch. It was close to fall off.

That my part of the Story.

Yes there should be a call back ...

 

[FE 065]

..After all the reports I finally put a torque wrench to mine last week. It's at 250lbs-ft now. I don't think it was under-torqued, I didn't feel the wrench move the bolt when I did it.

Too bad, hope the repairs go well for you!

 

[newredrt10]

With all of the harmonic balancer bolt problems out there, has anyone checked to see if the bolts are bottoming out in the hole or threads. If this is the case the bolts were never torque correctly and might explain why there is so many problems.

 

[ChicagoGTS]

Balancer 101:

A. Always use red loc-tite when putting bolt back in.

B. Any warranty on the crank is voided if it's been pinned and then get's damaged. (crank is around $4000 not including labor)

C. Check your balancer pulley every once in a while when the car is running, if it's loose you'll see a slight wobble.

D. The crank seal leak is normal when the balancer falls of, it usually get's damaged or allows oil to pass by since the balancer hub isn't tightened down on top of it.

E. The crank is a very, very, very, hard piece of steel. In all likely hood you would damage the balancer and the belt before you damage the block or the snout.

These are all just from my experiences, my balancer has come off three times. Two of them were with pin kits (Roll pins were sheered)

Good Luck,

~Matt~

 

[ABADASP]

Thanks for all the answers taking it in today to check it out.

 

[orlandov10]

my balancer came off on me last night, I plan on ordering a pin kit for Roe, do I have to drill the crankshaft? Is this a hard job? The end of my crank looks ok but its not perfectly smooth, there is some slight scrapes on the crank. Also the balancer feels wobbley on the end of the crank, its not tight at all.

 

[Sean Roe]

The balancer is cast and only about $75 from Dodge.
If in doubt, replace it.
To clean the crank, use some emory cloth.
I had to do that on the SRT we bought for R&D.
Went to check it as we began preparing for stock baseline dyno pulls and the bolt moved by hand.
Had a new SRT in the shop yesterday. Same thing.
Will they never learn?
Left hand threads on the bolt will make this go away....

 

[got one]

The balancer is cast and only about $75 from Dodge.
If in doubt, replace it.
To clean the crank, use some emory cloth.
I had to do that on the SRT we bought for R&D.
Went to check it as we began preparing for stock baseline dyno pulls and the bolt moved by hand.
Had a new SRT in the shop yesterday. Same thing.
Will they never learn?
Left hand threads on the bolt will make this go away....

Get Roe's Pin kit...worked like a champ for me!

 

[Schulmann]

Ah yes the new SRT-10 ... the same trouble.
I have a friend who had a Paxtron blower installed on his new SRT-10 Viper by a professional guy.

100mi later the falling damper slaughtered everything around the blower ....

 

[V10SpeedLuvr]

Not sure how accurate this is, but I was talking to the Viper/Prowler tech at a Dodge dealership a couple weeks ago and he mentioned there is a recall on the SRT's to tighten the crankshaft bolt. So for those of you in SRT's, you may wanna call your Dodge dealership and if there is a recall, I'd get it in pretty quick. With Dodge footing the bill, no excuse not to be 100% safe.

 

[orlandov10]

You would think Dodge would have installed a key way in the new Viper, my temp was pegged at 250 degrees, I could have warped a head if I didn't catch it. My buddy Tom has a SRT with a Paxton installed by Larry Macedo, Tom told me yesterday his was key'd? Has anyone ever installed a Keyway? It doesn't sound feasible.

 

[thebigsnake]

Yesterday I noticed my bolt was loose too while I was playing around under there.
How can you really tighten that bolt when the engine starts turning over every time you try. Anyways, I used the red loc-tite on it and tightened as much as I could.

 

[svensk]

Stop engine from turning,
in gear, pakingbrake set,,,,maybe.

 

[Larry Macedo]

Lots of good info in this thread! We have made a habit of keying, loctiting and torquing everything, no matter if it's S/C'd or not. We are currently replacing a crank that someone keyed, or attempted to key and destroyed the snout. This would be tuner actually attemted to weld the cast damper to the crank bolt washer. Buy Roe's key kit, follow the instructions, loctite the bolt and torque to 250 lb. ft. Set It and Forget It!

 

[Qualitywires.com]

Stock Damper is brittle. Go with ATI

 

[99 R/T 10]

Lots of good info in this thread! We have made a habit of keying, loctiting and torquing everything, no matter if it's S/C'd or not. We are currently replacing a crank that someone keyed, or attempted to key and destroyed the snout. This would be turner actually attemted to weld the cast damper to the crank bolt washer. Buy Roe's key kit, follow the instructions, loctite the bolt and torque to 250 lb. ft. Set It and Forget It!

Is this car you speak of from Scott at Elite

 

[Mark Hahn]

Anyone interested in the balancer off my '96 RT/10? I am about to pull it off to install a ATI balancer. I purchased the ATI unit 3 months ago but with all this talk I'll go ahead and swap it out so I can check the bolt torque while I'm at it. MGH

 

[monnieh]

My balancer came off. Got a rebuild from Arrow. Extended warrenty gamble really paid off.

 

[opnwide]

to tighten bolt. You need BIG torque wrench and 3 people. One guy stands on the brakes while the car is in 4th or 5th gear and two people pull/push on the wrench to torque into place.

 

[GR8_ASP]

Naw, 1 person is enough. Put your trans in 6th gear, parking brake on full and wheel chocks in front of each wheel. Then with a 250 ft-lb torque wrench (clicker type preferred) start to tighten. Add an extension (I use two plumbing pipes that fit inside one another and over the torque wrench handle) and yank hard. If you have a hoist and are doing it below the car either use the lifts post for reaction or try to be pulling down as much as possible. The first time I tried it I damn near tipped the hoist over. Yeow!

 

[JiPi]

Is it this what you call the harmonic balancer?
Is the damper the same thing?
I noticed a leak there the other day. Doesn't seem to be a lot, but still leaking.
ChicagoGTS mentioned that the crank seal leak is normal when the balancer falls of. So I better check if the bolt is loose.

With a small leak like that, do I necessarily need to change the seal, even if the bolt is tight?
How hard it is to change the seal? DIY job?

What is an ATI balancer and what is exactly is the purpose or the advantage over the stock one?
Thanks

 

[Qualitywires.com]

The stock damper is just fine for the stock motor as long as it's tighted right. When you go higher HP, especially with a supercharger system, then the belts put more stress on the stock damper that can cause it to spin or break. ATI is hands down, just the best. The roe pin kit is the best way to pin the (key) the crank since it uses roll pins on the outer part of the snout.

 

[thebigsnake]

Yeah, I was thinking of doing the motor in gear/handbreak thing, but I didn't want the car to come down on me. Any how I'll keep an eye on it.

 

[got one]

my balancer came off on me last night, I plan on ordering a pin kit for Roe, do I have to drill the crankshaft? Is this a hard job? The end of my crank looks ok but its not perfectly smooth, there is some slight scrapes on the crank. Also the balancer feels wobbley on the end of the crank, its not tight at all.

YUP...the Roe pin kit is a good little investment. I had a balancer come off when I was cruising down the road...not a good thing. No serious damage, just got the car a little hot till I coasted into a gas station and had it towed.

 

[Boxer12]

This thread should be pinned to the top! Just today while getting an alignment noticed the belt was getting shreaded. Found the bolt loose and balancer almost 3/8" out. Could have lost my engine with 7000 miles one month after buying the car! [******]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 'Dodged' a bullet. Any other bolts I should be torquing before they come off???

 

[BIGBADCJ]

Lots of good info in this thread! We have made a habit of keying, loctiting and torquing everything, no matter if it's S/C'd or not. We are currently replacing a crank that someone keyed, or attempted to key and destroyed the snout. This would be turner actually attemted to weld the cast damper to the crank bolt washer. Buy Roe's key kit, follow the instructions, loctite the bolt and torque to 250 lb. ft. Set It and Forget It!

Is this car you speak of from Scott at Elite

Hell mike that was my car. I got tired of the thing coming off every week. I was hanging around scotts one day and i was like [******] it...weld that bastard on. It never came off again!!! Id do it in a heartbeat if i had that problem again. I saved so much money in bolts and balencers.