I recently put performance heads and a cam in my 01, my harmonic balancer just started migrating out , shredding my belts and oil loss. My question is , if the cam was installed incorrectly would it cause the balancer to fail? It might be a stupid question, I'm not a mechanic lol

 

Stock balancer is an issue on the C5's. Is it still the stock balancer? If it is, then it should have been replaced when the work was done.
Chris

 

Did you install the stock balancer? If you did the oem balancer is know to fail and come apart and the outer part separates from the hub and can walk in or out .

Or did the balancer spin on the crank and migrate out, if so the bolt will have backed out and the balancer spun on the crank nose and moved outwards. I would think this is the greatest probability.

If the latter is true the install could be at fault. There is a special procedure for tightening the balancer bolt and has to be followed by the book.

 

Yes it was the original with 38k on it, 2k after the head and cam install. Not sure if if came apart or spun off the shaft. I'm gonna put an ATI on it and crank bolt. Anything else I should do for performance while it's torn apart?

 

I'm going to talk to the mechanic tomorrow and find out what exactly happened. I know the seal blew oil all over my garage floor and my AC belt got shredded

 

If oil came out of the front seal, then the balancer moved forward on the crank. If the balancer failed by separation, the hub would still be in the right location and you would not see the oil leak failure.

I suspect it is the balancer moved forward on the crank, so the installation is suspect.

The stock bolt needs to be torqued to a value and then a number of degrees of additional rotation. It is also a one time use bolt. So it may not have been installed correctly, or failed if it was reused.

If it was an ARP bolt, they are reusable and are torqued normally to a value.

Either bolt should use a thread locker Loctite.

If they did not do it correctly, the result is that the balancer bolt could back off and allow the balancer to move forward causing the problems.

Good luck with the repairs.

 

Depending on how you use the Corvette, I would also pin the crank. If you run HPDE's and have some high RPM corners, stock HB have been known to walk forward from the engine. Since you did Heads and Cam, I suspect you are pulling much higher RPM's and that often causes the crank to walk. those shredded belts can also tear up your hood liner.

 

Yes I've been hittin it pretty hard 😎 Haven't called the shop yet, I'm trying to think of a way to ask them if maybe it was their fault, save me $1000+ !

 

Here's how I did it from what I can remember:

1) disconnect the battery

2) Drain the oil

3) drain as much coolant as you can from the radiator

4) drain as much power steering fluid as you can from the lowest hose

5) remove the intake, fuel rail covers, fuel rails, and intake manifold. disconnecting all electrical connectors, pcv hoses, and coolant hoses as you go.

6) remove the serpentine belt and ac belt

7) put a bunch of drip pans under the car and remove all the hoses from the water pump. (messy)

8) remove the water pump and clean up the mess

9) disconnect the EBCM from the bracket by loosening the 3 bushing bolts.

10) suspend the EBCM from the alternator pulley using zip ties.

11) disconnect the front sway bar brackets and swing the sway bar down out of the way

12) Using a jack under the steering knuckle, unload the front suspension.

13) remove the upper control arm to frame bolts. (keep track of how many washers are under each bolt. This is your caster adjustment)

14) remove the lower shock bolts and the tie rod end nut.

15) Disconnect the tie rod end fron the knuckle.

16) disconnect the ABS electrical connector.

17) remove the jack and support the control arm with a jack to remove tension from the brake line

18) repeat disconnecting the suspension on the other side

19) remove the steering shaft u-bracket bolt and disconnect u-bracket from steering rack. (VERY IMPORTANT that you do this BEFORE you drop the cradle) As long as you don't rotate the wheel more than 180 degrees while it's apart there is no need to lock it in place. The shaft coming out of the steering rack has 3 flats so the bracket can only go on 1 way. Easy to line them back up during reassembly.

20) loosen the 4 cradle bolts to lower the cradle about a half inch.

21) remove the power steering cooler (if you have one)

22) disconnect the 2 lines going to the steering rack from the pump and cooler. (if you don't have a cooler, it's just the recirculation line) These can be accessed from the drivers side wheel well. Make sure to stuff plenty of shop towels under the area as well as drip pans because this is a messy one.

23) disconnect the electrical connector going to the steering rack.

24) remove the EBCM bracket (Beleive me it actually comes out after about 10 minutes of maneuvering it around in there)

25) remove the other steering rack to frame bolt.

26) At this point you should be able to remove the steering rack from the drivers side wheel well. again this is going to take some maneuvering but it does come out!

27) Now you have access to the crank bolt, but you will need to stop the engine from rotating. there are a few ways to stop the rotation: You can remove the starter and use a flywheel locking tool. you can remove the flywheel inspection cover and stick a pry bar between the flywheel teeth and the bell housing. You can put the car in gear and have someone hold the brake.

28) After removing the crank bolt, you will need to use a large 3 jaw puller to remove the old balancer.

29) I installed my arp crank bolt without the washer to use as a center support for the puller. It has a conical indention in the middle of the bolt which makes it super easy. I slowly backed the bolt out as I cranked on the puller as to maintain maximum thread engagement through the process.

30) I would never under any circumstances install another OEM balancer. Having said that, you are going to see a lot of information regarding measurements of the bore tolerance for interference fit and hub face to crank snout distance. If you buy a balancer for an LS1, it's going to already have the correct interference fit. The bore length is usually going to be different than the OEM balancer as well, so the hub face to crank snout dimensions aren't applicable either.

31) pluck out the old front main seal with a screw driver.

32) If aren't or don't have friends in the machining business, then you will need to get the GM tool for pressing on the new balancer. I had a friend make me one out of an old crank bolt and some threaded rod welded together in a fixture. I then used a piece of 1.5" diameter round stock bored out to fit over the rod. Add a nut on the end and it's essentially the same as the GM tool.

33) lubricate the front main seal bore in the front cover with clean engine oil. DO NOT lubricate the inner sealing surface of the seal. The seal to balancer hub must be installed dry. I used my SacCity front cover alignment tool to help press on the new seal nice and evenly along with my installation tool. don't crank on it too hard though. just enough to seat it or you can bust the front cover. You can tap lightly with a mallet after to ensure the seal is completely seated in the bore.

34) I used an ATI balancer. I first disassembled the hub from the rest of the balancer assembly. I heated up the hub with a hot plate to about 250F. I also lubed the crank snout and inner hub bore with anti seize before installation. This will ensure you indeed get a good interference fit especially if you aren't pinning the crank

35) I pinned the crank. cheap insurance.

36) I made sure to put the AC pulley on in the correct orientation first behind the hub. I used an oven mit to put the hub on the crank.

37) I used the installation tool to pull the balancer on the hub. Once It got far enough. I used my ARP bolt to pull it on the rest of the way. I made sure to lubricate the threads with ARP assembly lube as well as each face of the washer that comes with the nut.

38) Torque to 240ft-lbs.

39) Next I had to reassemble the balancer making sure to add blue loctite to all the fasteners tightening in a star pattern. Also, there is a little indention beside one of the holes on the hub and balancer that need to be lined up.

40) I replaced the short torx bolts with stainless allen bolts. The bolts it came with were pretty crappy and strip out easily.

41) After that, it's just everything in reverse.

42) I made sure to clean the holes and threads for the power steering connections really well with a wire wheel and then brake cleaner. I also used thread sealer on these threads.

43) Once you get the suspension bolted back up, you should be able to just center the steerig by hand. This will rotate the shaft into the correct orientation to be mounted to the steering shaft u-bracket. Also make sure the steering wheel is straight.

44) You can bleed the power steering system pretty easy by adding fluid and turning the wheel to each extreme several times.

45) make sure to follow the proper burping procedure for refilling the coolant.

46)If you install an underdrive pulley, make sure to get the correct size belt. The AC pulley may or may not be underdriven on your pulley. Just because you have a 10% underdrive doesn't mean the AC pulley is also 10% underdrive.


As a side note, while you have things apart, this would be prime time for installing a cam, timing set, timing chain dampener, or oil pump. You would need to remove the front spring and the front cover. After that, everything is right there.


I hope this helps. I may have missed a thing or two as I just wrote this from memory, but most of it is there I'm sure.

 

IMO, if they knew what they were doing they wouldn't have reused the old balancer. They would have recommended a new balancer (NOT OEM) and pinned it.

 

All that from memory? Thanks for all the information and advise. I just joined the forum yesterday and wish I had done so earlier! I already put a cam in her but starting to wish I went more aggressive, any recommendations?

 

Sure about that??

From ARP's instructions for the LS crank bolt:

[4] Lubricate the threads of the bolt, the underhead
of the bolt and the front face of the balancer
(where the washer contacts the balancer) with
ARP ULTRA-TORQUE FASTENER ASSEMBLY
LUBRICANT. Then install the washer onto the
bolt and install the bolt hand tight.

[5] Tighten the balancer bolt to 235 ft-lbs using
ARP ULTRA TORQUE FASTENER ASSEMBLY
LUBRICANT.

 

Neither bolt uses loctite. If installed correctly this wouldn't be an issue. I suspect improper installation. I have a friend who had a GM dealer re-use the original bolt. Backed out in one day and a dealer should know better.

 

The stock bolt comes with red loctite already on it. Use the google search to find the shorter method of replacing the crank bolt. When I did mine years ago, all I had to do was remove the wheels, undo the PS hoses, move the PS cooler out of the way and pull the steering rack. I had a right angle 1/2" drill and was able to use it to pin the crank. After my crank bolt had walked it was easy taking it off. The hard part was using a new stock bolt--required for Stock Class. I borrowed a flywheel stop, pulled the starter and replaced. I bought a HB '50 to 1' reducer, wedged it to the front brace and easily torqued the crank shaft bolt to the 140 deg mark. That is why most will have a shop do it.