How many of us have had the balancer go bad and at what mileage please. Mine appears to have a slight wobble at16000 miles.

 

It is clear here with post they can go bad at any mileage.

Miles mean nothing. Age, conditions and how the car is used can play into the way the rubber fails and the go bad.

I suspect also quality as GM did not do a good job on these units.

Yours is one of the low mike units but you are not alone.

There are two kinds of C5 models those with new balancers and those that will get balancers.

 

Take a silver Sharpie and put a couple stripes from the inner hub to the outer ring. Turn everything on, Max AC, Blower, rear defrost, lights, then briskly turn the steering wheel side to side. Now look at the stripes. If the stripes are still in alignment, Drive it. Keep an eye on it, but drive it. If it the stripes are no longer in alignment, replace it.
I went the Fluiddampr route as I found a NIB one on Ebay for a good price. Many use the Summit brand HB with great success. I have a Summit LS2 Timing chain and oil pump in my coupe, nothing wrong with the Summit stuff that I have purchased over the years. The tools Summit sells work great for removing and installing the HB. Some use Dayco/Powerbond HB from RockAuto. Really can't go wrong with any of them. I'd lean to the Summit if I was price sensitive. BTW if your reasonably mechanically inclined, its really not that bad of a job once the rack is out (Lock down the steering wheel). I'd also get an ARP HB bolt regardless of the brand balancer used.

 

In November 2019, my go to mechanic noticed a HB wobble in my 2004 Vert.. Although he said it was not critical, I live by Murphy's Law on stuff and had it replaced with a ATI HB at 44,300 miles.

 

16k miles? It probably got a wobble from boredom!


Age is just as bad as miles in this case IMO. It is a rubber component in a harsh environment.

 

Also as mentioned, just because it may have a little wobble to it doesn't mean impending doom. It could ride like that for another 16k miles trouble free.

 

Mine has 134K, am replacing it next week along with some other old parts.

 

Just as an aside, the factory balancer wobbles because the rubber in-between the two halves of the balancer gets brittle and shrinks, which leads to the outer ring to get loose and wobble or walk into the timing cover or walk out to the rack and pinion. The fact that our C5's generate way too much heat creating heat soak in the engine bay is a big contributor to the rubber in-between the HB to dry up and shrink.

I have changed out my radiator and fan with a DeWitt system and changed out the 190 tstate for a 180. And I have also had when my fans start and stop tuned to operate at lower temps. As a result, my operating temps in the summer range from 185-193. The fans from the factory are tuned to come on at: fan 1 225 on, 220 off, and fan 2 235 on and 230 off. I had them retuned to : fan 1 205 on, and 200 off, fan 2 210 on and 205 off. And just last week I had them retuned again : fan 1 195 on and 200 off and fan 2 200 on and 195 off. Since the retune last week I haven't had the car out to see the effect. I also had both fans to operate for about 2 minutes when I shut the car off.

Anyway the dialog about heat is to show why the rubber ring in the middle of the factory HB goes bad. I agree I will need to change it out at some time in the future but when i do I will double pin it also to ensure the HB does not spin on the crank snout.

 

You may be correct, but for me and a very lousy gambler and since I am a hard believer in Murphy's Law, I opted to take a replacement path sooner then later. Should the HB let loose, all not so good things can happen.

 

I put a witness mark on mine a few years ago and checked it weekly. the marks separated last fall and I started my balancer replace. 50k miles. will be done with the replacement in a couple days. never done one before. Murphys law was there but finally got her done.

 

I took mine off a few months ago to do a cam swap. It looked smooth when running but now that I've taken it off.. there is a chunk of rubber missing on it.
2004 Z06 51k miles

 

Thanks for the responses. Very helpful. I will use a sharpie and keep an eye on it.

 

Moved to C5 Tech.

 

what a engineering disaster.

 

As the C5 platform continues to illustrate both mechanically and electrical.

 

Mine gave up the ghost around 150K miles.
I think I aggravated it by replacing everything else on the front of the engine a month before. It was fine til then.