I finished the new timing chain and front cover install. The crankshaft damper has me concerned. I used a good install tool and I really cranked it down tight. There is about a 1/4" gap between the new damper and the front cover. I didn't take pictures of the old one before I took it off. Not sure if this is correct or not or what to do if it isn't. I put a ruler inside of the front of the damper and it is about 1" til it hits the front of the crank snout.

 

You can feel it stop as you crank it down. If it is still a slow steady push, it ain't there yet. If it got tighter, it is bottomed out good.

 

It's very hard to tell from your pic. The best way to install a balancer is to drop it in a sink full of hot water and put a ice pack over the crank snout for about 30 mins. The balancer then goes on fairly easy and you can feel when it bottoms against the crank.

 

 

You were cranking with a steady pull about 60-80 ft lbs for about 20 full turns of the wrench. Then it stopped turning and went up to about 100 ft lbs without turning in any more. Correct? That is the point it bottomed out.

 

 

Better served using the old "hot oil" method, expands the hub only and can be installed on the crank by hand!!

Assuming the correct press-fit SB's almost always go on all the way by hand. BB's go also with the same method but occasionally require finishing with an install tool. We've done so many in the past we get them all on without any tools!

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. With the hub heated in the hot oil you can handle the damper w/o any gloves! Here's a shot for anyone interested in this procedure.

 

 

I masked off the damper when painting so there is no over spray inside of the mounting hub. Nothing in the instructions about honing. I didn't measure the bore size or the crank nose. I put it up against the old damper and it appeared to be the same. I used a long bar on the bolt of the install tool to hold the engine from turning and a large 1 1/4" wrench on the large tightening nut. I would say I was over 100 lbs of force installing it and it felt like it was seated and didn't move any more. I think I may have to take it back off.

 

Bolt the pulley on and see if it aligns with the water pump pulley.

 

 

 

 

I'm going out now to pull it off. One thing I was thinking about was the new double row timing chain. The damper butts up against the crank sprocket correct? I went from the stock Chevy chain to a new double roller. If I'm not mistaken the double row sprocket sits further out and thus would make the damper stick out a little from stock?

 

I pulled off the damper and measured the old and the new inside diameter. It's not a perfect measurement because I don't have a bore measuring tool but using a dial caliper they were both pretty close. I measured the depth of both dampers from the face to the end of the bore and they were also pretty close within about .004 inches of each other. I measured from the end of the crank to the face of the timing chain crank sprocket inside of the engine cover and it is 1.3395 inches. The depth of the new damper is 2.3660. If I did this correctly with it installed that leaves 1.0265. Last night after cranking on the install tool pretty hard I measured with a ruler to the face of the damper and it was about 1 inch. So I think I've verified that the damper was installed flush with the crank sprocket. The only thing to think about now, did I install the crank sprocket far enough onto the crank snout when I did the timing chain? When I installed the crank chain sprocket I heated it up to about 250 degrees in the oven and it went most of the way on by hand. I did finish it off with a pipe that fit over the end of the crank and I hit it several times with a hammer. Where do I go from here? Pull the timing cover back off and reinstall the timing set? I put the water pump on hand tight , the pump pulley and the damper pulley. they seem to be lining up but that was just eyeing it not using any measuring tools.

 

The timing sprocket goes flush to the crank. All lower timing sprockets should be the same length. Look inside bore. You should be able to see the mark where the crank snout stopped. Measure it and compare to about length to timing sprocket.

 

I'm assuming you have a small block. Remove the water pump and measure from the face of the balancer to the block surface where the water pump sits. All mounting surfaces on the front of the block are in the same plane.

 

yes it is a small block. Had some major disasters today. I took off the balancer and everything looked good, no metal gouging or problems with the machined areas of the balancer inside hub mounting surface. I changed out the woodruff key to the new one that came with the balancer. The new install tool that I just bought snapped off while installing the balancer back on the engine. Not good. There was a small piece of the front of the installer stuck in the crank bolt threads. I had been removing the balancer with a cheap steering wheel puller from Harbor Freight. The tool was working good up until today and the center bolt got jammed in the puller and would not move. I went down to Autozone and got one of their loaner balancer removal/install tools. The tool that they had was pretty good. I got the balancer off and luckily I was able to remove the broken piece of the install tool from the front of the crank. I put the balancer back on and it is sitting where it was before I started all of this so I think I've got everything out of it that I can. I'll check those measurements out tonight and hopefully put this thing to bed and move on.

 

Whew! That was close.

Technically the balancer installing tools bolt does not have to be tighten up to the max. You must have really torqued it down, it bottomed out and SNAP.
In the future and I assume you are going to buy another installer, just hand tighten the bolt all the way until it does bottom out, then back it off a bit and keep it backed off. You want as many threads of the crank snout grabbing the bolt as possible without binding anywhere. By holding on to that center bolt with a wrench you can still torque down the installing tool nut.

 

It looks OK by where the timing scale is , I would just install pullys and belts see what it looks like ... I doubt highly you need to put the damper in a cooler or heat it lol