Harmonic balancer and "rod or valves?"

monkeyracing · 04-13-2003, 04:36 AM

Heya. First thing: I need to know if the harmonic balancer is interchangable between all years/models. Mine's kinda pooched and grooved. I've got this gawd awful oil leak from around my front crankshaft seal, and I'm figuring this is part of it.

Second: This one's for you hard core techs: I'm getting a rattle in the engine during certain circumstances. When changing gears, as I let the clutch out it clatters a bit, and at specific higher RPM ranges I get the same noises.

I was kind of thinking that it's likely the valves are banging around (bad lifters or spring?) because of worn components and the fact that it's definitely quieter than when I popped the bottom end. Now THAT was a scary noise.

Jim

**Ssicarman** · 04-13-2003, 06:33 AM

The SOHC ones should be the same through the years. The DOHC should be the same through the years. The two are not the same though. The DOHC ones have the rubber bonded outer ring while the SOHC ones don't. So single should fit single and double should fit double. Actually they are likely the same for fit other than the rubber boned in outer ring but that likely changes the diameter of the crank pulley so stick with what you have for repalcement.

The noise you're getting, engine knock/ping maybe? I would thnk that if you had bad valve train parts that they would be heard more often than not.

monkeyracing · 04-13-2003, 08:33 PM

Yeah, I'm praying it's valvetrain. I really don't want to pull the engine again. If it's the valvetrain then I can do all the work with the engine in place, and get home afterwards. If I gotta pull it out, well, there's another week of borrowing friend's cars to get around in. (pulling, fixing and replacing the engine's only about 7 or 8 hours work, but I don't have much time these days, so it gets spread out)

Jim