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I think something happened like this on an episode of fast and loud with an old GT 500 they got in. They used some JB Weld and a piece of metal to make an extension to grab on to.
SuperBuickGuy recommended welding a nut on the end and has done that before, but I don't have a welder. I considered JB weld but I wasn't that patient and the EZ Outs have been saving my A$$ lately so I tried them again. -My best purchase of 2018 -I've used them 3 times in the past year!
Glad to see you got a handle on it and your machine shop is going to clean up the damper fit.
Sometimes experience is the best teacher but she can be cruel sometimes.
We all have our stories.
Take care
Dennis
I picked up the balancer from the machine shop this morning.
When I dropped it off they said it's an ATI balancer and they always need to be honed, and they quoted the 0.0008" - 0.0012" tolerance range recommended by ATI and said they do them all the time and blahblahblah.
ATI's recommendation was: 1.2453" +/- .0001"
The paperwork I got back says "Use 1.2462 for size" -then someone scratched that out and wrote "0.0012 @ 1.2470" -the print out sheet says honed to 1.2470". My understanding is that that's basically the upper limit for the crank size, so that would be honed out too big...
Even if they started @ ATI's recommendation of 1.2453" and added 1.2 thousandths to that that's only 1.2465"; I don't understand how they got to 1.2470".
I'm not panicking until I go to install it, but it sure doesn't sound right...
Adam
Last edited by NewbVetteGuy; 05-31-2019 at 02:01 PM.
Did anyone measure the crank? They aren't all the same...especially aftermarket ones. That's why ATI leaves them small..so they can be made to fit anything.
Did anyone measure the crank? They aren't all the same...especially aftermarket ones. That's why ATI leaves them small..so they can be made to fit anything.
JIM
427
It's my understanding crank was & still is in assembled motor & was & still is in OP's shed while damper went to machine shop.
It seems OP measured his crank but shop didn't like those numbers OP gave them ... seems shop gave OP a short primer in gage technique ...
... seems OP measured his crank again and gave those numbers to shop ... seems shop honed damper based on crank numbers provided to them by OP.
In hindsight ... If it were my cluster ... and I couldn't bring crank to shop ... I'd have measured crank & locked mike and given locked mike to shop along with damper.
But then, I wouldn't have used this type damper on this purpose motor anyway.
Follow-up on the last two posts and FINALLY a GOOD update.
I measured the crank and locked the mics and took them with me to the machine shop; they asked how confident I was in the measurement because it seemed small for a stock forged GM crank; I said not very confident at all as I'm sure my technique was garbage. (It was.)
The Stock GM crank tolerance spec for the crank snouts was +/- 0.0001" per ATI and my machine shop (one of the few things on these old engines that actually had a very tight spec range.
The shops been around for decades and decades and most of the guys there have been too, they said they know ATI balancer specs off of their head (quoted them- same as this thread) and that they've miced tons of stock GM cranks and honed tons of balancers and that I can trust them, or I can go mic the crank again. I said I'm happy to trust them AND I'd try to measure the crank more accurately and bring my new measurement just to see if I've improved. (They said I was "within 5 10 thousandths, for sure" the 2nd time, so I still need more practice, apparently..)
I got the ATI balancer from a guy on the ThirdGen.org site for $150; I wouldn't have shelled out the money for ATI prices, but for that price I decided to "chance my arm" for a good brand.
After dinner last night I put the balancer up on the crank and it went a little bit, but it was obvious it was still going to be plenty tight and needed installed properly with the installer tool.
Install:
Heat Balancer hub: I used Gary from NY's Oil method to heat the balancer hub: I brought a very small pot of water to boil on the stove top, took an old soup can and filled it with my engine oil and then put the can into the pot of boiling water until I got the motor oil up to about 210F, too. Then carried an almost completely full soup can of motor oil across the house while wearing a leather glove (dumb) and put it down on the garage floor and put the balancer over the soup can and the end of the hub down into the hot oil.
Chill crank: I ended up just taking a can of air duster and spraying it upside down all over the end of the crank and then quickly grabbing the balancer and balancer install tool and installed it.
Harmonic Balancer installer: I put antisieze on the end of the crank adapter and screwed it into the end of the crank (getting smarter, slowly) lightly finger tight, then screwed the rod that goes through the balancer tool on that (only finger tight) and I oiled all threads of the tool. I actually used a wrench to hold the threaded rod straight (Didn't do that last time; major mistake) and used a regular-sized crescent wrench to tighten the nut on the balancer install tool instead of the 18" beast wrench. It DID get VERY tight towards the end and just as I was afraid I might need to pull out the 18" beast wrench, I felt it clearly bottom out where it is supposed to be: Success!
Then I aligned my crank trigger wheel to my crank pulley and just to keep it perfectly centered so there's no wobbling if the wheel were to slide while installing everything with the balancer bolt, I applied a couple dots of superglue between the aluminum crank pulley and the crank trigger wheel.
Installed pulley to balancer bolts- with locktite on the bolts.
Then my first and still remaining problem: My aluminum crank pulley from CVF Racing is VERY thick- I then have essentially an 1/8" spacer between the back of the pulley and the front of the balancer because of the crank trigger wheel -this makes my Harmonic balancer bolt just a bit too short. It will go in with the huge thick washer, but not with the lockwasher on there, too -I tried compressing the crap out of it to get it to start and it really didn't want to. Even with the lock washer removed it probably only has 5 threads going into the end of the crank. -I THINK I could probably get by with Red Locktight and no lock washer but I don't like it and I don't want to leave it this way.
-I can just go to the hardware store and get a bolt of the same size, with the same thread count / pitch that's a good Grade 8 Dichromate-covered bolt that's a 1/2" longer and use that, right? If they don't have a dichromate grade 8 bolt, can I use stainless for this application?
Now I'm heading to the garage to get the oil pan on, install the dipstick, set my balancer timing mark pointer, and hopefully get the intake installed today. -My wife and kids are out of town this weekend so I have like 10x the normal amount of time to work on the Vette this weekend!
Then install temp sensor in heads, and oil prime tomorrow. (I don't think I can install the flywheel with the engine in the stand so I'll have to wait for when I have it on the engine hoist to do that and install the starter then, too.
05-29-2019, 07:58 PM
