VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 balancer location

Before I go to the trouble of pulling the crankshaft pulley and balancer, has anyone ever seen a balancer intentionally installed behind the pulley instead of in front of it? Everything I have seen shows it forward of the pulley, and of course pulley alignment is off.
1930 1.5 ton

The balancer and the pulley are one in the same. Are you talking about the balancer being installed backwards? The balancer is installed with the pulley facing forward.

In my case the balancer and pulley must have been separate pieces with the ballancer put on first. That's all I can figure out. Why else would there be a "thinghy" behind the pulley about 1/4" thick and the same diameter.

As I mentioned above, the balancer and the pulley are one in the same. They are one unit. If your pulley is separate from the balancer then your pulley/balancer unit is broken.

Maybe you can tell me what I have here. This is my first attempt at attaching photos so bear with me. http://s1015.photobucket.com/user/tcwells6/library/

OK, so I can see the pictures. So can you restate your problem your trying to solve? Everything looks fine to me from your pictures.

What is the plate about 1/4" thick directly behind the pulley belt groove? It causes the generator pulley and water pump pulley to be out of alignment by exactly the same 1/4". There is also a thick spacer of a strange shape behind the pulley. enlarge the picture to see better.

This is a shot in the dark, but that does not appear to be the correct balancer and pulley. Looks like the pulley on the water pump is the wide (216) pulley and the one on the balancer is the narrow, later model.

The pulley groove widths are actually both the same at 5/8". On closer examination there doesn't appear to be any mechanical balancing mechanism on the pulley. It is just a weight and it is riveted on to the belt portion. The funny shaped spacer behind it appears to be just that. Is is free floating and does not appear to be doing anything. I suspect it is keeping the pulley from going on far enough and shouldn't be there. I am hoping someone can tell me what should be there.

The crank pully does seem too far forward compared to that on my '31. For mine, the pully/balance just clears the timing chain cover by perhaps 1/8", not much more, yours appears to be more than that.

The Harmonic Balancer for 1930 is a one year application and so is the Harmonic Balancer spacer as well. The Harmonic Balancer shown in the photo is correct for 1930.

Your alignment problem is due to the harmonic balancer not being installed far enough on the crankshaft. The plate on the back is the balancer part held to the pulley section by rivets and springs. It does move a little to provide the balancing.

Install two bolts into the holes on the front to firmly clamp the balancer plate to the pulley and then with pipe, board or other cushioning device pound the balancer further onto the crankshaft. The distance between the balancer and cover should only be ~ 1/32 of an inch.

Thank you all for your help. I will do as chipper suggests though I may have to lift the engine up off its mounts to get enough room behind the chassis mounted crank hole. Also, the beveled spacer behind it is too thick to allow it to go on any further. I have read that different spacers were used on different models in the same year.

I went out and looked at my 2- 31's and they are real close to the timing cover, I did notice one of the balancers is real lose, is that normal?

According to the Chevrolet parts book only one type of spacer was used in 1930.

No.

Are new ones hard to come by? and if one does not change this can it break the crank or just run rough or viberate

Yep!

If your Harmonic Balancer is loose it will cause a vibration.

The loose harmonic balancer can often be tightened in a press but pushing on the retaining washer. If not then it is necessary to take it apart straighten the parts and put it back together. New rivets or careful welding to secure the washer without overheating the springs can restore it.

For others bolting the parts together prevents a loose balancer plate.

Since pulling the ballancer off I thought I'd visit this topic one more time to tell you what I found. The ballancer was on the shaft only a distance of less than inch, about equal to the diameter of the shaft which is not good engineering and tells me it was intended to be further on. It could not go further on because of the "thinghy" which I took to be a spacer. It is what you see in one of the photos about 2" in diameter and looks like a thick washer but is actually stamped thin sheet metal and I've come to the conclusion that it is an oil slinger. It would catch the small amounts of oil escaping the gear cover and sling it at the 3 small weep holes on the ballancer to keep it lubricated. How about that!!! So what's wrong here? I suspect it is the gear cover which looks too pristine to be original and does not make allowance for the oil slinger. I've removed the slinger for now and will find another way to lubricate the ballancer.

The oil slinger is installed with the concave part of the oil slinger facing forward and the oil slinger goes all of the way back against the crankshaft inside of the timing cover.

Have you removed the Harmonic Balancer and the timing cover to inspect inside of the timing cover?

I haven't removed the timing cover and probably should have.

Ahhh! "Inside the timing cover". The last person to install it put it outside the timing cover. It looks like I get to pull the ballancer again, and the timing cover.
Thanks

The continuing saga! As a first time restorer I had hoped to go through the chassis, brakes, drivetrain, and body work and save the engine until later as It sounded pretty good when I purchased the truck a few months ago, and previous restorers had already worked on the engine. But alas, its not to be. On removing the timing gear cover I see that someone has beat the crank gear on with a hammer so bad that all of the gear teeth are bent over at the forward end. The disfigured teeth have damaged the forward end of the teeth on the other gear, which by the way must be aftermarket, as it is made of micarta. As I see it I have two choices: Grind off the distorted portion of the teeth and use the gear as is, or buy a new gear. Its the restorers dilemma. By the way, the oil nozzle is not putting out as it is bone dry in there. That makes me wonder how many other passages are blocked. While I have the cover off I might as well re-weld the forward engine mount bolt which is broken. Your thoughts?

You have a few choices. One is put it back together and take you chances. Another is fix what you can and then put back together and hope. Last is take it back apart and verify a correct rebuild or rebuild it yourself.

BTW one of the timing gears will be micorda or resin impregnated fabric. That minimizes gear noise.