balancer issue?

So the other days I heard a ticking or knocking coming from the front of my 4.0. long story short I had found that the harmonic balancer bolt had backed out and the balancer was wobbling back and forth on the crank. I was able to unscrew the bolt by hand and slide the balancer off by hand also.

The woodruff key was beat up and the keyway in the crank is a little beat out too. But the balancer is fine. What I did the get back on the road was baught a new woodruff key and put it in it's place on the crank with a small amount of JB weld under it. Then I slid the balancer back on by hand and put red locktite on the bolt and torque that thing down super tight.

It is working just fine now but should I be worried? Especially at the fact that the balancer goes on and off without the use of a puller/installer??

Sounds like the balancer wallowed out a little. Might have been better to replace the balancer too.

Had something similar happen once fixed it with a new woodruff key and loc tight as you did, it still look wobbly a few hundred miles later so I bought a new pulley worried the old one was played out, honestly don't know if the pulley mattered or not with in a few hundred more miles a rod started knocking ( probably from the head gasket blowing years earlier) ended up swapping the engine for one with lower miles. Not sure how this plays out with a motor that isn't sick.



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Ok thanks , I think will replace the balancer. That was just a temporary fix for me

As I remember it the crank was pretty tough and the pulley took the majority of the damage. Woodruff key obviously the weaker link between the three. I think the new pulley was tight and the normal PITA to install where the old one was too easy to slip on.

But like I said that engine was on its way out so I don't know if the crank had any long term damage that mattered.




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