I noticed that my harmonic balancer is wobbling a little bit when the car is running.

Pulled the balancer and hoping it was the hub that was bent, but it was the shaft, which really put a damper on things (sorry for the pun). My son is really bummed because he just loves this car.....

Has anyone have any ideas on how to straighten the shaft without engine removal?

I really don't want to put a hammer to it, but I'm out of ideas.

Any suggestions?

 

If you are saying the end of the crank is bent, then there it will have to be replaced or somehow straightened, but it will have to come out.

 

A friend of mine told me that I could put shims in between two of the three bolts between the hub and balancer, making the balancer straight again.....

I think this will work to take the wobble out, but the hub will still be off around the shaft seal......

I was also thinking of putting a high strength bar inside the balancer shaft hole and using a floor jack lifting the bar ever-so slightly and bend it back into being close.....hopefully w/o snapping the shaft off.

The way I look at it, I'm screwed either way. I have to try something.

 

Sure, you can try anything that might work. If it does not work, you are back to where you were in the first place. Of course, it will never be straight again without professional attention.

 

Just curious if you pulled the hub off (assuming you probably did). I was also wondering what would bend things other that trying to lift motor there or some aggresive pounding. Just curious if you pulled the hub and then observed the shaft being out of round with engine rotating or how you verified. If it is the shaft seems like might have some bearing problems too but idk.


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The moron who owned this car before me must have hammered the balacer back on with a maul hammer........who knows.

I did the trick with the shims (made from soda can aluminum) between the hub and balancer and it's straight....but the seal is blowing oil like no tomorrow.

I'm going to have to pull the balancer off again, and put on a repair sleeve. The shaft must be worn, because I installed a new shaft seal, and it's leaking oil like crazy.

 

Nothing is going to correct the leak if the end of the crank is bent and wallowing in the seal. A repair sleeve won't fix that.

 

The shaft was pretty worn.....but I'm going to try this before I put a bar into the balancer hole and bend the shaft back into being close with a floor jack....

I'm screwed no matter what I do, so I'm going to try it and see what happens.

I just can't believe it. Didn't plan on this.

If this doesn't work, I'll be selling a 96 Z pretty cheap.

 

Just crazy that the crank bent! If you cant fix it its not the end of the world to put an engine in these if you have te means to do so. Where are you located?

 

I live in Maryland....

I've removed engines before, restored a 69 Camaro SS, but I didn't bet on pulling the engine from this thing. You basically have to lift the front of the car and take the motor from underneath.

I have the means to do it, just don't really want to.

 

I didn't want to, either. But I did it when I spun a rod bearing.

Sorry you have this problem.

 

Yeah, I have taken them out the top and bottom. The bottom is the better way to go. Good luck let us know how it ends up.

 

I'm going to try and bend it back with the floor jack first. If that doesn't work, then we're either going to sell it cheap, or replace the engine with a lower mileage unit. The body has 180K miles.

I put a new sleeve on the balancer last night, and had a helluva time putting it back on the engine. I can't believe the sleeve made it that much harder to put back on. Used oil everywhere, but still hard to put back on. It actually looks even more bent.

This car has to be possessed!!!! Shame, it's a nice car that needs little work, except for this fiasco.