Information for our International : US & UK Customers

Below is information which I have compiled for International inquiries. I hope it helps answer your concerns. Please call us or email back if you have any other questions. 

1. When you do send us dampers please email us the date sent, the number sent and what they are, please as parcels sent to us have been mislaid locally and we like to retrieve them but if you don't inform us they are sent, we will never know.
2. Please address the parcel to Harmonic Damper Rebuilds Ltd, 29 Russell St, Waihi, 3610, New Zealand
3. QUOTE: We cannot give you an estimate of the cost of the repair without a photograph of front back and edge of each damper. Having restored quite a lot of Classic car dampers we know they vary widely in how they are constructed and how much time it will take to disassemble, clean and remanufacture them. However when we get the damper disassembled it may prove to need a lot more work than can be estimated by sight.
4. COST: The good news for you is that the NZ$ has slumped in the last few months so any price we quote will likely be 2/3 to half that in your currency. Please check the exchange rate. 
5. As a cost example the Ferrari we rebuilt recently cost $646 NZ including jig making and materials. Our competitors in Australia charge a flat rate of $1000 for jig-making before they charge for the re-manufacturing - just to give you a comparison.
6. FREIGHT: Because dampers are heavy for their size they aren't economical to freight but surface freight (takes 4 weeks by ship) should be the best economy bulk freight bet from the US and UK. You will have to do the sending from your end as all the customs declarations will need to be filled in by you. I'd recommend that if your consignment weighs 20kg - up to tonnes that you talk to a shipping agent.
7. As they are (essentially useless) second hand parts the estimated value of your consignment can be low <$200 and avoid extra tax (GST/VAT) 
8. I don't know about the US or UK but for goods valued at over $400NZ we have to pay 15% on the freight as well as the value of the goods. This is supposed to be changing soon so any value over $20.00 will be taxed at 15% at our end.
9. Alternatively individual damper consignments by post may be the most economical.
10. International courier services vary wildly in their costings and at times their fastest service is cheaper than their slower freight (TNT last I asked) 

Your mileage may vary.

WARRANTY: We are a small quality custom re-manufacturing service so our system isn't fast but you do get a quality 'better than it was new' result and we provide a warranty of our work. See our warranty details on this website.

PHOTOGRAPHS: sending photos of the dampers by email is totally acceptable to us.

Customer Responsibilities are to:-

1. Remove the damper from the engine in an appropriate manner which does not damage it. 
2. Provide accurate timing marks - email photographs of the timing cover or mark TDC on the damper before sending it to us.
3. Providing your full contact details and honest details of the use for the damper eg boating, car, racing.
4. Handling and transporting the damper safely to us.
5. Re-fitting of the damper upon return in a way which does not damage it.

Looking forward to making your precious automobile run better than it has in years, faster, quieter, smoother and with no damage to the engine because your pulley now runs true and does its job.

Send us an email Damperdude - at - gmail.com

Christine and John

Give new life to that Metalastik Damper

Metalastik Patent Harmonic dampers are in the shape of a dinner plate and are stamped with this name as shown in the image below.

Austin Healey 3000 Metalastik Dampers Before & After

During the 1950s these harmonic dampers were commonly fitted to many British Automobiles. As you can see by the state of the rusty Healey 3000 damper in the image, the rubber in all of these dampers is fading fast and will in most cases be failing to do the job of damping the engine vibrations.
Here is a short list of the makes these dampers were fitted to.

1. Bedford Trucks and buses 
2. Jaguar MK7, MK8, MK9, Jaguar Mk10-3.8 litre, XK120, XK140-3.4 litre, XK150- 3.4 litre and 3.8 litre. Also Jaguar Mk 1 and Mk 2 3.4 litre
3. Maserati sports cars from the 50s and 60s had Metalastik dampers fitted
4. Austin Healey and other Austin Models
5. Deutz
6. Big Ford Diesel engines

If you know of other models which use metalastic dampers please leave a note in the comments below. Millions of these dampers were fitted to all kinds of vehicles, many of which we aren't yet aware of.
NEW We now offer re-manufacturing to NEW standard of these Metalastik dampers. 
We offer a 5 year return to our base warranty of our workmanship for ordinary road use. 
We have to exclude racing from our warranty as many car owners are now using their engines at revs far beyond what they were designed for, and beyond what the Metalastik damper was also designed for.
Your old core is required so we can custom clean, straighten and re-manufacture it.
You will therefore be giving your original part a new life damping the vibrations of your engine which you may have expensively overhauled. 
Contact us damperdude *at* gmail.com to arrange your new Metalastik damper and look forward to smooth running in your automobile.
If you need a Metalastik damper urgently we have in stock Jaguar, Austin Healey and Maserati dampers.

Image from https://www.3dtuning.com/en-US/tuning/austin-healey/3000/convertible.1959

MG Engine issues - a solution

MG 1.5 Litre engines sometimes had a proper crank pulley attached to the front but frequently did not have more than a simple little pulley. That was not a problem when the drivers were simply using the car at the road speeds of the 1950s.
60 years later owners of these machines want to race, hill climb, compete in Targa races and more.
This brings the RPM of the engine up beyond 4000 to 7000 and eventually inevitably results in breakage of gearboxes and crankshafts.
We are working on a prototype damper which we intend to resolve the critical harmonic problems which cause metal fatigue and breakage at the high RPM now required of these engines.
If you own one of these MG engines and are interested in damping it for racing or competition please contact us at damperdude 0@0 gmail.com and express your interest, outline the issues you are facing and we will do our best to assist you.

Custom made harmonic dampers for your classic car motoring needs from the Damperdude.

Signs a crank pulley or harmonic damper is malfunctioning

It's hard to know what the problem is when your engine begins vibrating at odd speeds, or your passengers start being ill, or the windows wind themselves down.
These are all symptoms of the damper being out of whack.

Rubber weakens with age and also deteriorates due to excessive heat, oil exposure, solvent exposure, and contraction. So what happens when a harmonic damper is malfunctioning? What are the symptoms?
Here's a handy list for you to check out.

1.  Deterioration of the rubber between the hub and the outer ring. Shown as cracking, bulging or shrinking instead of forming a smooth layer level with the metal components. This will be likely in any crank pulley over 10 years old because of the natural deterioration of the rubber. So old OEM dampers may well not last well or perform their duty even if they have only sat on the shelf for the past 10+ years.

Don't forget rubber is a natural product that simply deteriorates over time.

2.  Any wobble of the balancer or wobble in the drive pulley.

3.  Excessive engine vibration.

4.  Crankshaft cracking or failure.

5.  Squeaking that does not stop when all other possible sources have been eliminated.

6. Excessive bearing wear.

7.  Excessive gearbox wear or failure.

8.  Failure of other rotating or reciprocating engine elements.

9.  Loose flywheel or pulley bolts.

10.  Slipping, slapping or noisy drive belts. Having to change belts frequently.

11.  Loss of horsepower and lessened fuel efficiency.

12.  Highly polished asymmetrical spons in the pulley grooves, means a warped inertia ring.

13.  Elongation of the balancer key-way or wear on the balancer hub or crankshaft.

14.  Failure in the alternator, power steering pump, A/C or water pump.

15.  Engines that don't run properly when adjusting the timing.

16.  Irregular idle.

When a damper wears, what happens, at a minimum, is that the outer ring will move so the timing mark will be in the wrong position. Or, at worse, the ring comes completely off while you're driving and becomes the worlds heaviest "Frisbee" under your hood. Your radiator is one of the favorite items your newly found toy likes to go through.

Causes of damper failure:- age, cracked hub keyways, incorrect damper for the engine or crankshaft, damage from improper mounting or removal. Bent or out of balance drive shafts, buckled or out of balance driving wheels, excessive heat and age.

If you have a high performance engine without fitting a correctly calculated high performance damper, a standard damper could completely self-destruct sending high speed shrapnel throughout the engine bay with destructive consequences that are not hard to imagine.

It is important to understand that while an engine from any manufacturer is designed by a team of qualified engineers, after market dampers are often designed by people who do not understand the very important principles of physics that are used to design harmonic dampers. Great care should be taken in the selection of any damper to be used as replacement for a stock or for use in high performance engines.

If a cast iron damper is replaced with a steel damper care should be taken that the mass of the steel damper is equal to the mass of the damper being replaced. Because steel is much lighter than cast iron this means the damper will be somewhat larger than the one being replaced.

I have seen after market-dampers that have failed in spectacular fashion after brief use and have customers who are returning to a stock damper due to unsatisfactory results with after-market replacements. As in any field of after market componentry there is a small sector that know what they are doing and a wide range of pirate imitators.

John Mallett

Vibration in my 38 Packard straight 8 - the fix

ENGINE HARMONY
What's the most misunderstood and ignored engine part under the hood of your of your machine?  The harmonic damper or balancer.
I suspected that the harmonic damper could be the cause of an annoying harshness that was part noise and part vibration and which seemed to be in everything from the ash tray to the tyres in my 38 Packard straight 8.
Problem is you can't call a part defective when you have no idea how it works or what it does.  I served my mechanic apprenticeship some years ago at South Auckland Motors (Ford) where this engine part was never mentioned on the floor or in any training material - if it's not giving a problem you don't get told about it.
Having had no luck in trying to find the information I needed within the trade, I then Googled it on the internet and hey presto.  If you are looking for something you never expect to find it on your own door step but the solution was!

Harmonic Damper Rebuilds Ltd 07 863 3350 (John Mallett the Damperdude) is in Waihi and he overhauls and services harmonic dampers.  After talking to John about my 38 Packard straight 8 damper – all my questions were answered.
John explained the damper's job as follows:

'All objects have a natural frequency that they resonate or vibrate at when struck. An everyday example of this is a tuning fork. The sound that a particular fork makes is directly related to the frequency that it is vibrating at.
Crankshafts twist back and forth a small amount every time a cylinder has a power stroke. This motion is complicated because the amplitude of the vibration varies along the shaft. Eg. the combustion process bending the con rod is one of the complications. The crankshaft will experience torsional vibrations of the greatest amplitude at the point furthest from the flywheel or load.'

These forces are absorbed and neutralized by the damper.
If the damper is seized as it was on my Packard 8 not only was driving it a little unpleasant but I was risking bearing and/or crankshaft failure.

Consider these points:
1) The more con rods an engine has, the more capacity the damper needs to have.
2) If a manual trans is replaced with an auto trans the damper spec could well be different.
3) The length and number of main bearings a crankshaft has determines the dampers capacity.
4) Horizontally opposed 4 cylinder engines although small rely on dampers due to con rod layout and distance between main bearings.

‘By the way the Packard delivered the bride very smoothly!’
Cheers Nigel

Limited Warranty TAC up to 5 yrs

Yes we do warranty our work repairing harmonic dampers.
The basics are :- 12 months unlimited kms warranty, return to our base.
Racing, drags, rallying, boy-racing, and other non-standard driving of the engine are expressly excluded.
For those dampers we make supercharger fittings for, or which are expressly for high performance we will cover on a case by case basis if there is defective workmanship and/or materials for our work.
If you only drive your vehicle occasionally we are happy to extend the warranty to 5 years.
If you are re-selling/passing on our work to another person/company we regret that we cannot extend our warranty to cover third parties (or more) without our express permission.
We particularly exclude original equipment manufacture (OEM) faults and materials from this warranty - since the remanufacture of the pulley relies upon re-use and repair of OEM parts.
Damage to the damper before it reaches our workshop is also expressly excluded from this warranty and repair of bent or broken parts will cost extra.
If the fault is not found to be our workmanship after we have repaired it at your request an additional full hourly charge for all time and materials will be made.

Customer Responsibilities are to:-

1. Remove the damper from the engine in an appropriate manner which does not damage it. 
2. Provide accurate timing marks - email photographs of the timing cover or mark TDC on the damper before sending it to us.
3. Providing your full contact details and honest details of the use for the damper eg boating, car, racing.
4. Handling and transporting the damper safely to us.
5. Re-fitting of the damper upon return in a way which does not damage it.

If you don't know how to do these things please ask us. damperdude (at) gmail.com or call 0064  7  863&3143

In all cases New Zealand consumer law and New Zealand laws apply to all transactions.

Oil Seals

There are a number of types of stainless steel oil seal sleeve available to quickly stem oil seal leaks once your damper spigot becomes grooved and worn from an old oil seal running on it for too many miles.
The oil seal surface is grooved on a balancer or harmonic damper most mechanics will apply a cheap stainless steel sleeve and send your damper away with an oversize spigot too large for the oil seal. The stainless steel of the ss sleeve has no lubrication and this causes heat build up and thereby ruins your new oil seal. This is why many engines leak shortly after a stainless sleeve is fitted.
If the keyway is cracked the stainless sleeve will not help hold the cast iron damper together.
The solution? I hand-make 1040 mild steel sleeves for all the balancers I repair.
Your seal surface will be restored to mint condition with a heat-shrunk or press-fitted steel sleeve.
Cracks will not crack further or move as the whole spigot is held firmly intact by the steel sleeve. I make the sleeve surface the correct size to fit your oil seal.

Oil seal surface on the spigot worn and grooved

A custom made steel sleeved spigot ready to fit on the engine.

Contact us damperdude -at- gmail dot com for more information.
Thanks for reading our blog post - is there more you want to know? Leave a query in the comments.