Harmonic Balancer gone bad...happen to anyone else? [MERGE]

[turbotalon_]

Its a DSM its going to make weird noises. If nothing it breaking don't worry about it, I have all kinds of noises but I don't care. My car runs great!

 

[wret]

Its a DSM its going to make weird noises. If nothing it breaking don't worry about it, I have all kinds of noises but I don't care. My car runs great!

Bad idea. A failing balancer pulley can throw belts and leave you stranded. Or worse, the flailing belts can damage other things.

 

[TurboSportAWD]

When my harmonic dampener separated it threw my a/c belt under my timing belt. Need I say more?

 

[deformer]

I have had a problem with my belts squeeling since i had them changed last year. So i finnally took off my powersteering and alternator belts and started up the car. I noticed that the Crankshaft pulley was shaking. So i took off my tire and go to it and noticed that it was 2 pieces. The outer ring can be taken off the pulley. Now i dont think this is supposed to be two pieces. I'm not sure how to take this pulley off but, if i could it would look like this.

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So im sure this is what is causing the belt squeel right?

 

[kruci99]

Absolutely!!!
This is supposed to be in 1 piece not 2! I had the same situation with my car last winter. I even tried to get one from a junkyard, but every DSM was raped out of the puleys. So even there I concluded it is a problem a lot of DSMers have. You should get a new harmonic balancer puley and you will be fine!
Mine cost me like $90.
So go get it!

 

[deformer]

What kind of tool do i need to take off my old pulley. I tried to take off the 4 little bolts holding it on but, the pulley keeps turning and the bolts are on really tight. I dont really have the money to pay a shop. So where can i get the tool i need to take it off?

 

[girlieracr4g63]

Only thing I can tell you is to grab it as tight as you can with one hand while you take a rachet and do little torqe bumps on it with the palm of your hand.


Wendy

 

[kruci99]

Just insert a big screwdriver or something through the opening in the pulley and hold it against the block and loosen the bolt with a socket and breaker bar! Good luck!

You do not need a shop to do it man! It's simple!

 

[natedogg]

I don't mean to ressurect a dead thread but I found these articles interesting and pertinent to this discussion. My apologies if it is a repost. ATI makes a super damper for DSM's and EVO's. I have purchased one for my Talon and plan on installing it sometime this week. Be prepared to pay $400+ though.

http://www.atiperformanceproducts.com/products/dampers/101/index.htm
http://www.atiperformanceproducts.com/products/dampers/damper_tech.htm
http://www.atiperformanceproducts.com/products/dampers/testing/index.htm
http://www.atiperformanceproducts.com/products/dampers/damper_dinan.htm

 

[Linkizunlistd]

I Have The Same Squeak In The Morning Or When My Car Has Been Off For A While. The Loud Screaching For About Thirty Seconds. When I Turn The Wheel Back And Forth It Quiets Down A Little Bit, Then Eventually It Goes Away. I just Had My Timing Belt, Water Pump And Head Gasket Replaced. After Reading All Of This I Am Guessing The Alternater Bearings.....but I Still Have Another Squeaking When That Goes Away. This Is A Constant Quieter Squeak (not That Quiet). It Is Always Squeaking When I Am In Gear. I Cant Pinpoint Exactly What Is Squeaking ### It Is Pretty Loud. It Is Definitely In The Area Of All My Belts And Pulleys. Please Help Me Identify What The Problem Is.....pictures Would Definitely Help Since I Cant Identify Every Part By Name.
Thanks Guys,

Link

 

[j30-tsi-awd]

Use oem belts. i fought belt squeal for 5 months. i switched batterys, alternators, i tried dayco, napa goodyear belts. nothing would work and as soon as i went back to oem no more squeal...zip zero nada...start there. sounds stupid and crazy but im telling you it worked for me.

 

[92tsibacker]

My harmonic balancer is going bad on my 92 eagle talon tsi awd. I was wandering if the balancer is different from a non turbo 2.0 motor.

 

[95blackGsTurbo]

They are all the same.

 

[BK85]

I Have The Same Squeak In The Morning Or When My Car Has Been Off For A While. The Loud Screaching For About Thirty Seconds. When I Turn The Wheel Back And Forth It Quiets Down A Little Bit, Then Eventually It Goes Away. I just Had My Timing Belt, Water Pump And Head Gasket Replaced. After Reading All Of This I Am Guessing The Alternater Bearings.....but I Still Have Another Squeaking When That Goes Away. This Is A Constant Quieter Squeak (not That Quiet). It Is Always Squeaking When I Am In Gear. I Cant Pinpoint Exactly What Is Squeaking ### It Is Pretty Loud. It Is Definitely In The Area Of All My Belts And Pulleys. Please Help Me Identify What The Problem Is.....pictures Would Definitely Help Since I Cant Identify Every Part By Name.
Thanks Guys,

Link

I had the quieter squeak as well after the big squeak goes away. I sprinkled some dry ajax cleanser on the back side of the belts and the quiet squeak went away. Now to attack the loud annoying squeak. I have alot of great ideas from this thread. At another site they suggested it could be signs of the dreaded crankwalk

BK85

 

[BK85]

ha k so its probably not your crank pulley. I remember when I went to get my napa belts they gave me 2 belts made for our car and they were both 1/2 inch longer than the oem one. So keep that in mind that these things have to be pulled pretty tight, on top of it loosening and what not as the engine heats up.

Having my digital camera readily at hand I took a quick pic for ya. I know it doesn't look like the washer is adding much but I tensioned the belt a ton then added the washer and it worked for me.

Great stuff, this finally cured that annoying start up squeak. I found that the guy that installed my clutch a few months ago didn't bother to put the adjuster bolt in the U shaped bracket. He just put a broom stick behind the alternator and bolted it tight like we used to do on Chevy V8s. I couldn't get the adjuster bolt to stay in the U shaped bracket until I put a huge washer on it like you did. Now for the first time in month's NO SQUEAK

Thanks again.

BK85

 

[95talon_in_ma]

Check all of the bolts on the power steering pump too. There are two that you have to tighten through the pulley holes. It's a mitsubishi thing. My girfriends galant and my last talon did the same exact squeal.
Use Thread-loc if it keeps lossening up.

Duane

 

[Lancer14]

I've searched around a bit, on these forums and others, however I still haven't been able to find a solution to this problem.
It started around the time that I rebuilt my motor (Approx. 10K miles ago). Shortly after it began happening, I replaced the starter with a remanufactured unit. The problem is that I get a high pitched squeal just for a split second as the engine starts. I'm almost certain that it is coming from the starter, as I have replaced all belts and the harmonic balancer within the past 5K miles or so.
I tore apart the starter this morning and regreased the internal gearing thinking that it could've been the culprit. Unfortunately this didn't solve the problem at all.
Here is a brief video to get an idea of what it sounds like. http://www.altrevo.com/StartupSqueal.wmv
The only other thing I can think of is that the starter is getting caught on the flywheel for an instant after the engine starts.
Any help is greatly appreciated!

Chris

 

[dieseltech]

You're in luck. i used to rebuild starters and alternators. When you had the starter apart did you thourghly inspect the bearings? I'm unfimilar with these starters but for the most part they are all the same. I agree that is sounds like the starter is staying engaged. Was there a shim that didn't get put back in to properly space the starter? Perhaps a bushing in the end of the starter is bad, or gone and you didn't know it was supposed to be there. I'm going to suscribe to this thread and see you through this

 

[Lancer14]

Excellent!
It was my first time going through a starter, so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to describe what I saw (or didn't see)
There was one ball bearing that sat on the end of the large rotor/stator? type device. As for the gearing, I didn't see any bearings that I could get at. I pulled out 3 small gears that sat inside of a larger gear. Those were the items that I greased. When I tried to remove the larger gear, the whole assembly would slide out about an inch. It looked to me as if there was a cuff that was pressed onto the business end (the gear that actually comes out and engages the flywheel) of the assembly. That was preventing me from going any further with disassembly.
When I removed the old starter (as far as I know it was the factory unit), I didn't see any shims. Although this idea had come to mind at one point during my troubles. The new starter is a NAPA remanufactured Mitsu piece. I'd like to try shimming it to see if that might solve the problem, but I'm not sure how far I should bring it out. Don't want to do any damage.
I did run the starter when I initially removed it from the car yesterday. It was very smooth with absolutely no abnormal sounds.
Thanks for the help!! Hopefully we can figure it out.

Chris

 

[dieseltech]

I haven't had any luck coming up with a picture of the starter. It sounds like the one way clutch on the drive. Also while studying your video it seems like your engine cranks very slowly. It could be the video doing this. Can you make a video with the mpi fuse unplugged and cranking. You should be able to crank for 10 seconds without the starter losing speed. Or you could take it to a parts store or shope and they could perform a starter draw and battery test. I've seen new starters that are bad so never assume the new starter is good

 

[Lancer14]

The slow cranking is most likely because my battery is nearly dead. I have serious issues keeping a charge with any battery. Batteries and alternator both test Ok. I've checked for shorts using the test light in series with the negative battery cable, but find none. That's another thing that's got me stumped. I have my battery relocated into the hatch, so I thought maybe there was somewhere along the positive cable that was causing high resistance, however this checks out fine also.
I've got a freshly charged battery, so I'll go grab a vid of the engine cranking in a few mins.

Chris

 

[dieseltech]

When you relocated the battery what size of cable did you go with? Usually when you lengthen the distance the electricty needs to travel you also need to enlarge the cable size. I'll try to find a formula for this if you could give me an approximate length of the cable itself. Also did you run your negative cable to then engine as well? This is very important to do. 90% of all electrical problems deal with the ground.

 

[justin0469]

The slow cranking is most likely because my battery is nearly dead.

Usually, but I learned that it can be the starter on its way out after replacing the battery and alternator and still having the same problem. Then I replaced the starter and all was good.

 

[dieseltech]

He mentioned he put in a new reman napa starter. What it appears to me is this. The starter is cranking the engine slowly. Once the engine fires up it catches the starter and basically throws the starter drive around very fast. The noise is the one way clutch in the starter drive.

 

[Lancer14]

First off, here's a video of the engine cranking with the MPI fuse out.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8461340096999569334
Unfortunately my server seems to be down right now, so I had to go with google. Hopefully the vid works.
I believe the wire I used for the battery relocation was 2 gauge. I ran the ground to a point in the hatch rather than back up to the engine. I can't recall the length of positive cable that I ran. If I were to guess I would say around 12-15 ft maybe.

Chris