Harmonic balancer question
 

I'm asking this for a friend..

He's got a 65 Mustang that he just dropped a 302 he rebuilt in. It's got all new internals, cast though, and a low rpm torque cam.....it's actually a cam meant for RVs. He's in his break-in period right now and has barely driven the car over 100 miles. His harmonic balancer is shot. It gives him a timing reading of 40 degrees advanced for the car to run AT ALL, and as soon as he hits around 1800-2000 rpms the engine starts to vibrate very roughly. He rarely takes it over 2000 rpms. How long can he go like this before damaging his bearings, etc? I'm sure he plans on another few weeks of driving before replacing it. The engine is cabureted also.

Also....the heads he put on are warped so the car can't go very far, maybe 15 miles, before it starts to overheat and blow coolant past his head gasket. One of his spark plugs is covered in oil.

He's too stubborn to park the car or do anything to fix it right now...how badly can he be damaging his engine? I think it's toast, but he's sure it's just perfectly fine and that nothing bad is going to happen, he just needs to fix these things. :rolleyes:

You gotta be kidding! He's breaking it in alright, literally. It makes me cringe just thinking about it. He'll be replacing the engine soon.

??????????????, he already needs a rebuild:(

Like I said...he's too stubborn. And he insists he knows more about cars than I ever will. Yeah, he knows more about the internal stuff of an engine.....but I think I've got him beat on the common sense scale..

I don't know, he doesn't seem to know more than you. If he did he would not be not be doing it.:confused:

Yeah, who knows. I mean there's a lot of stuff he knows that I don't know, but I think he's pretty damn stupid for running it like this! Oh well.. He wants to drag race me when he gets his break-in period over with because he's also convinced that he'll whoop up on me. We'll see who gets the last laugh.

Dude is this guy drunk! That balancer is gonna screw him up big time! When my balancer gave out, i was scared I could have screwed somehting up in the 3 seconds the engine shook like hell before i got it shut off. Driving around like this is gonna kill his motor. Also - warped heads- wtf is this guys deal? Coolant in the cylinders is GREAAAAT!
Oh and buy the way - the only race he will be winning is the race onto the tow truck after his stupidity leaves him with no ride.

Like it or not, your freind is going to hear a loud noise very soon that will signal the demise of some forward part of his crank. It will literally snap in two. I'm not going to say that it probably or might happen, it WILL happen. Balancers are fairly inexpensive but I know finances can be tight sometimes. But this can't have a good outcome if he lets it go too long.
Pulling the balancer and replacing it. . .75 bucks maybe? New crank and bearings. . . . pulling the engine. . . and whatever other damage he might do to the block????????? Big bucks!

Warped heads? Even I don't do that and I'm so tight my wallet squeaks.

If only I could make him realize this. Ah well. His car, not mine.

As Forrest Gump said "Stupid is as stupid does". Some times it takes a good hard wack at the wallet to realize you is not as smart as you think you is. Leave him alone in all his knowledge and he will hopefully learn something. You cannot reason with a person who says " do not confuese me with facts, my mind is made up!"

If it's half as bad as you say, his bearings are already bad. What an idiot. I hope he's well off, 'cause he's gonna need some money real soon.

He's broke...but since his dad helped him build it in the first place, his dad will probably cover a rebuild. But it'll have to be guzzling all colors of smoke and knocking before he recognizes that he needs a rebuild. The funny part is...he's Mr. Know-It-All engine mechanic..I asked him 3 different times if he's sure the harmonic balancer is the right one, and the flywheel too....and he said yes every time, and thought the vibration was coming from his rear end (which is also crapping out because he rebuilt it but used the same gears so it whines constantly) He just now realized that his balancer is shot. Dummy.