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It’s held together with rubber, essentially, so at some point it will weaken. That event timeline seems to vary widely, based on accounts from the forum.
You can paint a white line diagonally from the center to the outer ring to help detect slippage. The other thing is wobble, as mentioned above.
I used the “possibility” of failure as an excuse to go in and swap the cam and heads 😀, and replace the balancer “while I was in there”. And trust me, if I can do it anyone can.
It’s held together with rubber, essentially, so at some point it will weaken. That event timeline seems to vary widely, based on accounts from the forum.
You can paint a white line diagonally from the center to the outer ring to help detect slippage. The other thing is wobble, as mentioned above.
I used the “possibility” of failure as an excuse to go in and swap the cam and heads 😀, and replace the balancer “while I was in there”. And trust me, if I can do it anyone can.
I have just changed mine 3 weeks ago 2003
With 60k there was a light wobble and the serpentine have started screaming for awhile put a Summit Racing in and now it’s perfect
I replaced the one in my '99 just before 100k miles. As others have noted it's an aging rubber part, though some are more resilient than others.
One way I recently discovered to check the "wobble" is to take a slow-mo video of the balancer, this Is a good way to determine the amount of wobble you might have.
I have 85k on mine with no wobble - I make sure to drive it year-round. When I took it to ECS for clutch and torque tube they found I was leaking oil at the front (that was a surprise - I had expected rear) - and the reason was that the front seal had cut a groove into the balancer resulting in the leak! Damper and seal replaced…
The factors I see often at play is this. Miles, Age, where you live climate wise and how it is driven. The cars that are driven hard and raced can lose a balancer much sooner.
Automatic cars and cars with lower miles and not driven hard can last longer. The real key is just eyeball it and watch for any increase in wobble. They fact is they all wobble a slight bit bit if it increases and or you see it hitting the steering rack. It is time.
If and when just do the Summit Balancer one. It is the highest quality for a very good price. Also consider changing the front seal and cover and Summit offers that too. Change belts if old and check the water pump while you are there and you may want to do that while it is appart.
The factors I see often at play is this. Miles, Age, where you live climate wise and how it is driven. The cars that are driven hard and raced can lose a balancer much sooner.
Automatic cars and cars with lower miles and not driven hard can last longer. The real key is just eyeball it and watch for any increase in wobble. They fact is they all wobble a slight bit bit if it increases and or you see it hitting the steering rack. It is time.
If and when just do the Summit Balancer one. It is the highest quality for a very good price. Also consider changing the front seal and cover and Summit offers that too. Change belts if old and check the water pump while you are there and you may want to do that while it is appart.
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I replaced the one in my '99 just before 100k miles. As others have noted it's an aging rubber part, though some are more resilient than others.
One way I recently discovered to check the "wobble" is to take a slow-mo video of the balancer, this Is a good way to determine the amount of wobble you might have.
I've replaced a few over the years. The Summit and OE style seem to be the ones that last the least amount of time and the rubber fails. The ATI seems really good but one failed and hit the steering rack on a friend's car (6 years old track car) and it was a PAIN to remove.
Doing my own, I did a Fluidampr since it has no rubber bond to fail and using the ARP bolt it's got no play either. I retorqued it after a week to be safe but it was fine. About 5k miles since (5 months) and still golden.
I have 85k on mine with no wobble - I make sure to drive it year-round. When I took it to ECS for clutch and torque tube they found I was leaking oil at the front (that was a surprise - I had expected rear) - and the reason was that the front seal had cut a groove into the balancer resulting in the leak! Damper and seal replaced…
I just replaced mine a couple months ago, it was wobbling a little bit, but not bad for 177k. But the oil leak, yuck. When I removed my balancer I had found the same groove worn into mine.
Most balancers wobble. It should just be a small amount. Don't over react on a small bit.
As for failure of the Summit Balancer or most other SFI rated balancers it is next to nothing unless they were damaged in some way. They are built to high standards and the failure rates are extremely low.
If you use one you likely have fixed it for the life of the car.
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