hot auto review

Here’s a simple way to quickly check whether your factory harmonic balancer is slipping.

Under heavy-duty operation, a conventional harmonic balancer’s outer metal inertia ring can “walk” in relation to the central rubber elastomer and inner metal hub section. Besides erratic timing readings, a walking balancer no longer adequately damps reciprocating assembly harmonics, and at this point may even suffer a catastrophic failure. One way to quickly detect whether the outer ring has started slipping is to paint a straight line across the front or rear face of the damper (photo, arrow) before installing it on the crank. Any future jog in the line means the balancer is slipping.