Balance issue… help!

[Prestidigitator]

Originally Posted by olddog

The slight variance in ballance from one damper or flexplate to the next might make the differance in an all out race engines life span, but it is not going to be felt. So if you have the correct parts on the engine that it was ballanced for, you will not feel any vibration.

I find this very interesting and this could be the key to what I’m driving at here (pun intended).

So let’s say you take a motor that is smooth running and balanced and you take off either or BOTH the balancer and flex plate and you replace them the proper balancer and flex plate but that of a different manufacturer.

Are you saying that you would not notice the difference or that there would not be much if any difference in the running of the motor?

If you are saying yes to this question then that would mean that there really are no “combinations” that this guy can try, correct?

Here’s the kicker that got me. He said he was going to try these “combinations” WITHOUT removing the transmission.

Originally Posted by Keithc8

If you are using solid motor mounts you will have some vibrating at different rpms. Good luck, Keith

Total Control motor mounts.

Originally Posted by Keithc8

You can mount the engine with rubber mounts like the factory ones or with solid ones. This just depends on the company and their engine mounts. If the engine was dynoed with the wrong balancer or flywheel you should be able to tell this when dynoed. I do not know if you could tell in a video or not. I would make sure that I had the right flywheel or flexplate because they can get boxed wrong or mixed up.
You might have a miss in the engine causing this as well. I had a guy that had an exhaust pipe against the frame and he swore his engine was out of balance till he found this problem. This is the big problem with Fords and all of their differnet styles of balancing. Good luck

Thanks Keith.

According to the guy who has my car now EVERYTHING matches up, balancer and flex plate.

I know nothing of dynos, but assuming that the engine was dynoed where it would NOT be possible to tell if there was a balance issue, is it possible that the motor company could have built, dynoed and then boxed up the motor without realizing that it was out of balance?

Also here is another scenario that has crossed my mind. Is it possible that they sent it out balanced correctly but it got handled rough in shipment and it sent it out of balance?

I will for sure have him re-check anything that has to do with ignition problems.

Originally Posted by Jerry Clayton

I see you are from California---are you sure its not just an earthquake???

LOL!

Nah, that was the first thing I checked. Pretty sure it wasn’t that.

I have been balancing engines for over 30 years .

Is your car a stick or automatic?

Automatic

How do you know it was your engine in the video?

It had my brackets and pulleys on the front, it’s unmistakable.

Unless of course they dynoed a motor with my stuff then pulled it off and put it on another motor, which, obviously is highly unlikely?

Are your pulleys custom built or are there others like them?

Zoops brackets and pulleys and yes there are many others like them.

Was your engine balanced/dynoed with the flywheel/flexplate that you have or was a change made to different one before install(((((many,many times, an externally balanced engine changes owners or planned vehicle install and the flywheel/flexplate will get changed for a different clutch /trans type))))))probably see that as much as 5% of the time

99.9% sure it is a DIFFERENT flex plate then the one they used to dyno the motor with.

I didn't see ANY flexplates hanging on the wall in the background and he made it sound as if they just take a flexplate that they have new in a box and ship it along with the motor.

And as I remember that was the case when I recieved the motor. It was new in a box.

If flexplate, is it installed backwards???? clocked correctly on flywheel? takes some effort but by filing out boltholes can be done?

Hmmm… can’t say with 100% accuracy but I will have him check this.

Are you saying it’s possible to install a flex plate backwards with ease?

If it is a stick, and you have an aftermarket flywheel there should be a bolt on weight on the front side of the flywheel that will be opposite of the front balancer weight---if it has the weight---and is not opposite the front exactly, the flywheel is on wrong or the front balancer was put on without a key and has turned---
Is the front balancer an oem stock ford or an aftermarket one??????don't say fluid damper

Sorry, being the novice I am I got lost here a little.

Not exactly sure what you are saying. Also, It is a professional products balancer and it has a counterweight.

On the flywheel weight----if it is missing but you can see the bolt holes wwhere it goes, you can add the weight and see if that works or changed the weight to a different amount

if you can verify that changing weight on the flywheel changes the amount of shake---you can probably fix it by adding the right amount or if its a flexplate by changing to the correct one.

It’s sounds to me like you are stating that if it’s a flywheel you can play with the balance and if it’s a flex plate you get what you get, correct?

As for it being a miss----since 1958--- many missing/rough running fords had 3 plug wires installed incorrectly on the left bank---checking them would be the first thing I would do and the second would be verifying that the front balancer was on correctly by doing a tdc check

I will advise him to these probable issues.

Originally Posted by G_Edmonds

In the original post you said "flexplate" so I'm going to assume it has an automatic transmission. I had a similar situation lately and it turned out the torque convertor was out of balance.
Good luck.

Interesting, this has never been brought up.

I'll see what he has to say about this as well.

Thank you to everyone who has chimed in this has been a learning experience and I look forward to your responses.

Thanks again.