All, after investigating some oil leakage and belt throwing probs I discovered a cracked balancer. It is cracked the entire length of the sleeve that goes over the crank snout. The thing will go on/off by hand now. It is a CAT HB 400 OEM type balancer that came with the Eagle 383 stroker kit. The engine does not have too many miles on it (maybe 1000) and aprox 30 1/4 passes. The belts just started coming off last weekend which caused me to do some further investigation.

I am thankful I found it before it came through the hood but the question is now what? Can I just replace it with another brand XXX externally balanced balancer for a 400 or does the entire rotating assembly need to come out and get rebalanced?

Thanks for any advice/replies..

Chris

call the place you got the assemble from they may be able to replace your ballancer free at least i would think so no older than it is also they sould have the weights if they did the balancing to get it right

If it was balanced properly yes you can change dampers.
Any quality balance job will not alter the weight of an externally balanced damper or flywheel.
Let me put this as politely as I can,,,,
The damper you have would not be my first chioce for a replacement :D
My first choice is always ATI but their are some less expensive alternatives that are of very good quality.

Thanks for the advice guys, and BillK who responded back to me through email. I ended up going with an all steel race unit from Pro-Race (p/n 64266) due to local availability. The engine is now extremely smooth in comparison to last week when the CAT balancer started heading south. I just hope I caught it in time (aprox 20 street miles and four 1/4 mile runs) avoiding any serious damage. :eek:

The car ran strong today and was running real close to my all time bests despite the 70 deg temp.

Also, it is worth noting the new balancer appeared to go on aprox 1/4 in further than my prev balancer...possibly due to me actually using an install tool vice the balancer bolt. :(

I had that happen & DIDN"T catch it in time.
The cracked balancer broke away the woodruff key groove & I had to replace the crank graemlins/clonk.gif