When I diassembled the balancer and the hub during my cam install, it turned out that nothing was lined up like it was supposed to be. I made sure everything was lined up TDC, but it did me no good because nothing was lined up like it was supposed to be. After I reassembled everything the proper way, I realized the balancer had weights installed in it. I have no idea what this means, and I was wondering if it is important that the weights are lined up or not like they were before. Aren't LT1's internally balanced?? I really have no idea how everything was before, or how they should be now. I lined up all the dots/arrows/lines, but now this weight thing is throwing me off. I just really hope all this work wasn't in vain.

 

"If" you picked up some "definite" engine vibrations(not to be confused with camshaft lope)....you could always remove and then "re-install" the balancer(hub) 1/4 turn at a time untill the vibrations subside...pain in the ***, but I've seen some real shakers cured this way...this is also fairly common when people get engines from the salvage yard and there was no harmonic balancer on it, or it was damaged and needed replacement.........LT1's are supposed to be truely Zero balanced on the nose, but many had their harmonic balancers drilled, and had weight added on the assembly line to get things a bit more balanced.......this afterthought "Hot" balancing, mixed with having no crank keyway is pretty stupid to say the least........http://www.automotiverebuilder.com/ar/ar99928.htm mentions this issue (and the recomended fix) in the "hub & balancer" section about half way down the page ... good luck with it............Joe

 

Yah, there are 2 weights that are mounted inside a couple of the holes on my balancer. I wished to hell I had known things were gonna be so messed up before I took them apart. O well...anyway thanks very much for your help.

 

If you put it back in the position it should have been when it left the factory, you should be fine.

 

Hmmm, then I have a few questions just to clear everything up:

When the Lt1 left the factory, EVERYTHING was lined up, meaning: crank timing gear dot at 12oclock, hub mark at 12oclock and correspondingly the balancer pulley arrow at 12oclock, is this correct??

Or, were things (dots, marks, arrows) not aligned correctly sometimes, and in turn leading the engine builders to rebalance things after being assembeled by adding weights?

Or even if everything was perfectly aligned (dots, marks, arrows) would things still be out of balance sometimes?

Which one is the case? Because if its the latter one, I should have no balance problems, as I re-assembled my engine with everything aligned, correct?

(btw shoebox your tech guides have been an amazing help during my cam install. I would have never even gotten past getting the radiator out if it wasn't for you lol. I'm going to be using your valvespring swap guide next, I'm sure its as good as the others. Thanks a bunch man)

 

The little weights are added to the holes to neutral balance the dampener.