Why can't you fix my damper, crank balancer?

Why can't you fix my broken damper, crank balancer?

There are some jobs we just cannot make a custom repair for, and there's a lot of reasons.

1. COST:- The design of the damper means that when it is worn out, it cannot be re-manufactured by hand without enormous cost to you, the customer. If cost is not an issue for you, we can put the time into our best effort at getting you a newly functioning damper. Because John is an aircraft fitter he can create all new parts if the damper is in such poor condition that it cannot be re-used. 
2. DESIGN:- Like a lot of mechanical parts, automobile and truck harmonic dampers were not created to be dis-assembled and re-manufactured. 
3. MANUFACTURE:- Manufacturing processes used to make them aren't conducive to repairing them. Parts like crank pulleys/dampers are made to a designated price; cheap and fast is the way they are made in the past 50 years. Recent dampers are made in temperature controlled robot factories using techniques humans cannot replicate.

Making parts disposable and only replaceable with new OEM parts protects manufacturers from law suits. It also guarantees that consumers must buy newer vehicles when old vehicles become obsolete.

Catch with this? Once all the old parts are sold your vehicle is off the road for lack of one small but crucial part - the crank pulley or harmonic damper.

That is where we can usually help you.

1930s Packard damper
What is it like inside?

So what are our specific difficulties?

Time.

Many of our customers need the part yesterday. This is because they checked the harmonic damper last in their maintenance schedule. We cannot make up for time our customers have lost by not sending the part to us in a timely fashion for repair.

Unforseen glitches in the repair process can take a lot of time to resolve. 

At HDR we take the time to give you a great result.

Dis-assembling the part to find out how it was made without breaking it.

Often the majority of time spent on a new job will be this seemingly simple task. If the delicate cast iron of the hub or inertia ring is broken it is really hard to repair so we don't break it. 

Complex dampers with flimsy light parts and large areas of rubber molded around internal metal components are almost impossible to dis-assemble without damaging the parts.

Parts are too worn out.

Some dampers are so worn out that there is no regular fix and the worn or broken parts must be repaired by hand. Cast iron welding, keyway cutting, new springs, inertia rings and hubs can all be made but at a cost of time and money for you the customer.

Unusual manufacture: 

We see crank pulleys from 100 years of automotive history. From Bugatti to Packard and Rolls Royce; GM and Ford to Hyundai, Renault, Datsun and Skoda. And everything else in between.

Because each crank pulley has been designed to dampen the vibrations from one particular style of crank shaft they are all unique. Functionally they do the same job, but the reality is that for every engine there is a different damper designed by a different group of engineers to solve specific harmonic vibration issues with the engine in the development stage. 

So unless we get a run of dampers to repair from the same year, make and model of engine, every job is very different and requires different skills. 

It's a dual hazard and joy of working in a custom rebuilding industry.

Successful difficult rebuild: Renault 05

We can't duplicate the way it was made to re-assemble it so that it works the way it was designed to work for your engine. 

Sometimes there is no alternative way to assemble it.

Over the past nine years we have developed a lot of different techniques using new rubbers, special bonding agents and the like to solve re-manufacturing issues but there is a limit to our ingenuity when it comes to re-assembling some crank pulleys.
Some components fail to:

1. Balance
2. Weigh the right weight 
3. Have the inertia ring run concentric with the hub
4. Include all the components they are supposed to contain in the space they were designed to occupy.
5. Run the pulley belts in the correct alignment
6. Have the timing in the correct place; 

Whatever the reasons for these issues, if they cannot be resolved it means we can't begin or complete the job. 

Toyota boat special before repair

Toyota boat special after repair

If we say we can't fix it we really mean it. 

It means that in our experience it will be uneconomic, or simply not possible to repair.

If you want us to go the extra mile, it's your call: feel welcome to have a discussion with us about your needs.

Making a completely new damper or a prototype damper for an engine which has never had a damper 

If you can afford the time and cost for us to put the time into hand crafting a completely new damper by making a new hub, inertia ring, rubbers, springs and other parts, most worn out crank pulley/dampers can be repaired so they work or alternatively completely accurately reproduced.
This could save your special engine from death in the back of the shed. 

Contact us damperdude - at - gmail.com and send some photographs of your crank pulley.
Or give us a call, we are friendly and keen to learn and share information. 00 64 7&863 3350

Check out our featured book http://quintessence.papertrell.com/id003678303/Lets-Fix-It

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