bhj balancer! are u serious?

creeperxr7

Registered User
:mad: k finaly got my balancer was all happy gone go put it on my car, start reading these colorful papers inside the box come to find out that i cant put it on as it came, not only do they cost $400 freaken dollars but u still gota pay to get it sized and balanced. someone tell me this is all bull. O and the freaken bolt also. they sent a bolt wont that fit?


OK So what is it that i have to do?

measure the nose on shaft.... isnt their specs for this measurement.?

get it honed for a press fit. so what size would this be?

balance the pulley to the balancer. arent they balanced already?

sorry guys its just that paying this much and still having to do all kinds of things just to mount it kinda tiks me off. any guidence thru this much appriciated thanks.
 
They require a precise fit to the crank snout. Everyone's crank snout is a slightly different size. Rather than just having you slap it on there they have you measure your crank snout and hone the ID of the balancer to the proper size so you get the correct fit. It isn't that difficult.

The stock pulley and balancer are balanced as a unit. Thus the stock pulley may not be neutrally balanced. If you don't want to deal with that get an aftermarket aluminum pulley which should be neutrally balanced.

Neither of these are really the fault of the balancer.
 
Sorry u had to find out the hard way, but its been well known that BHJ's are not necessarily sized to your specific crank. Crank sizes vary by car. When i got mine for the 89 i had to hone it to size. Its easy, get ur self a drill and buy a set of brake cylinder honing stones (cheap). You are going to have a hard time with the keyway in the balancer but the stones I bought from autozone conveniently fit inside the keyway so put some stones in the keyway and hone to size. HOpe it helps and good luck.
 
Don't take this the wrong way, but if you had read through these forums, you would have found out what needs to be done.

For the honing, you need to measure the crank snout and then have the balancer honed so its I think about 0.003" or so smaller so its a press fit. Thats a given it needs to be done because of the different snout diameters you can get out there on the cranks. The stock crank pully will need to be zero balanced, but as for the balancer, it is already. If you have an aftermarket pully, it should already be zero balanced.

As always, these cars are not like the moostangs. They are expensive because they are rare and the parts are not so readily available. Its something you have to live with. Want cheap aftermarket parts? Then buy one of those stang things ;) .
 
90% of the time the BHJ balancer is going to fit your crank without doing anything. You do not have to balance it...it's already zero balanced. As mentioned earlier, your stock stamped steel POS factory pulley should be balanced or replaced with a zero balanced crank pulley like what comes with underdrives.

David
 
I just installed one last weekend. I already had an alum crank pulley which is needs no balanceing. I calipered the crank and the BHJ ballencer. It was a perfect fit out of the box. I got my balencer from a vender who threw in the longer bolt to boot. Wait till you go to time it. you cant use the timing marks on the ballencer. There is a thread on here that explains everything so its not that big a deal

Ken
 
Some clarity.

1) It is not uncommon to need to hone a high performance balancer to fit your crank. This is not a defect or failure to provide a quality product but rather an attempt to provide a top notch product for more ordinary use. It's too bad we don't have an in-between option for average everyday use.

2) You may or may not need to hone the balancer. Check fitment first. The balancers are precisely made, our cranks are not. If you can get the keyway to engage without encountering a press fit, then you'll be ok. Usually some honing is required to engage the keyway. Due to most people's inexperience with measuring with micrometers, it is best to error on the small side with your honing. If you measure wrong and over hone the balancer, it will be junk. Keep this in mind.

3) As posted above, the balancer does not require balancing. Your stock pulley may. If Ford hadn't made the darn thing so big it wouldn't be such a big deal.

4) Yes, it definitely bites when you realize that your $400 balancer is going to cost you $500+ by the time you are done.
 
first of all I wana thank all of u for the help and advice thats why i love this forum everyone is willing to help when needed.


for my luck i do have a aftermarket pulley i got from a recking yard! I think their the right ones. they werent actually on the car they were inside. just to make sure . the shaft pulley outer ring is smaller and the inside one is bigger correct? and i believe the water pump is way bigger then stock size? Ok if i use those pulleys im probably gona need diffrent belts for the jack shaft and acc. correct. how do i know what part number im gona need for the belts.? and is their any consequences in going with the underdrive pulleys?



thanks
 
You shouldn't need different belts

I would not hone the balancer unless you have the proper equipment (inside and outside micrometers). You could very easily destroy both the balancer and the crank if you screw it up.

Beg, borrow or steal a micrometer large enough to measure the snout.
Clean the snout with acetone (removes oil film)
measure the snout in three to four places (measure the same location two or three times to make sure you get a consistant reading)
oil the snout

Draw a quick diagram of the measurements and take that, the damper and ~$25 to a machine shop. You may want to take the micrometer also if you can't trust it (IE: you haven't checked it against a standard)

Aaron
 
Since my balancer is original with 230,000 miles on it.. I'll just betcha my crank is on the thicker side of the range. As a result, my OEM balancer probably has a tighter fit which may be why it hasn't failed. And yes, I do check it. Its solid. I don't race my daily driver though, so high RPMs are not common. That probably has something to do with it as well. :D :cool:
 
well being that the pulleys change in diameter i thought the belt sizes would change as well.
:confused:

The crank pulley gets smaller and the water pump and alternator get bigger. The net result is the stock belt will be right at the limit on the tensioner for clearance between the waterpump and tensioner pulley. Mine has like 1/16" clearance tops, maybe less.

And when we were working out the original design on the balancer, I had 3 cranks and 3 OEM used dampers to measure. 2 of the cranks were the same and 1 was about .0005" smaller. The 3 used dampers had a range of over .007" because the aluminum galls so badly when installed. A reused OEM damper with aluminum hub will result in about a .003"-.005" CLEARANCE fit. The BHJ should be setup with about .001" INTERFERENCE fit. So, with the variances we had, the decision was made to make them on the tight side so they would fit on the smallest crank snout. For at most $25, the BHJ can be fit perfectly to whatever crank size you have and it'll never be a problem again.

Just some background on why you have to go through this process. I'm running one of the original 5 balancers made with over 50,000 miles on it and the stock, supposedly too short, bolt. I have a 2nd of those first 5 sitting on the shelf in case they were never made again. :)

Steve
 
You know now that I think about it, I might start stock piling SC parts like balancers, dis modules, 5-speed transmissions..... hard to find stuff. These cars aren't old like 60's muscle car old, but a lot of the parts used were way ahead of their time and since they were made in such low quantitites and there isn't a high demand for the parts, it isn't profitable for companies to stock pile the parts or introduce new parts.

Thats the downside to owning an SC.
 
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