Langadorf

I decided to take the Vette to work today, and as I was pulling into the parking lot I felt the power steering go out and the thudding of the serpentine belt being thrown around. I parked and popped the hood expecting to see a broken belt. However, the belt was fine so I started looking at the pulleys. Everything looking in line except for the harmonic balancer - it apparently has shifted forward about 1/4".

It seems the balancer bolt has been stripped out and the balancer has worked its way loose. Is there any way to fix the stripped out crank bolt hole with the motor in place? Do they make helicoils with the proper threading for the balancer bolt? I'm worried about drilling it in place, b/c I think it'll be hard to keep the metal shavings from dropping into the oil pan.

Thanks for any input.

Fevre

Might try a thread chaser to clean it out and then a longer bolt to see if you have any good threads left. Then use a long bolt that will almost bottom out, might have to use an add washer or two to keep it from bottoming out. :( Take the orig bolt to a hard ware and get a grade eight bolt to match the threads and the length you need. Been then done that.

Langadorf

But what if there are no good threads, or very little? Can you helicoil the crank?

Langadorf

Well, after work I had planned on just tightening up the bolt or banging the balancer back into place with a hammer. I put my hand on the balancer, wiggled it, and then it just fell off.

Here are pics of it and the bolt:



As you can tell, the bolt was stripped pretty badly. The bigger concern, however, is the inside of the balancer - it's rounded out completely. It slips right on and off the crank without any resistance. The crank itself has some scrapes on it from where the notched edge of the balancer rubbed against it.

Any ideas on what could have caused this? Do you think I could get away with just using another balancer and helicoiling the crank bolt hole? Or does the crank probably need replacing?

Thanks.