9165pt0

Saw the balancer wobblying ever so slightly. Decided to take a better look at the rubber, and in the front it was cracked in a lil area and bulging out slightly. Decided to pull it off to inspect the back side, and the rubber has almost completely came out in a area. Time for a new balancer. As I was experiencing a light throttle miss and hear a vibrating pulse through the exhaust at times. Next I decide to go ahead and drain the oil, and the oil has a grayish color to it in streaks. Most of the oil looks normal dark brownish in color, but then theres these solid gray streaks. Observing the old oil I notice a slight sparkle/shimmer under light. And if I take a screwdriver and mix the oil around you can see those gray streaks. So next I stick a magnet in the oil and there are tiny lil metal pieces sticking to the tip of the magnet. They don't look copperish, but more like lil pieces of steel, almost like small sand pebbles. Car ran decently besides the slight miss, but I did see oil pressure getting lower than usual last week, as well as a higher than normal oil reading. What could the metal pieces be? Can a bad balancer that doesn't seem to wobble much to the human eye, still be wobblying and causing issues with the crank and internal engine parts?

dawson1112

Metal shavings in the oil are not good. They could be caused by a number of things, and not limited to one.

I would stat by pulling the timing cover, inspect all timing components , ie chain, gears, cam thrust plate. Take ahold of the crank nose and see if you can move it up/down sideways.

Pull the cam inspect for burn or worn spots on the lobes and bosses . Pull the oil pan and inspect for wear on the crank , check al piston rods for any play.

If the engine was starting to loose oil pressure or the oil pressure was fluctuating up and down then there is a good chance the crank bearings are about to go , and hopefully you caught it before one spun.

lxman1

Something bad is definitely going on in there.

Like mentioned above, any loss of oil pressure? Any valvetrain noise?

Since you have the balancer off, go ahead and pull the timing cover and have a look around.

I think Dawson covered the basic places to inspect. Good luck.

9165pt0

yeah thanks guys looks like ill just have to tear into it a lil more. sucks because this was an awesome motor and im thinking the balancer ate it up. not sure why oil is grayish, doesn't overheat etc, but possibly water is getting in there somehow since I have seen a lot of white steam out of exhaust. not huge plumes of it, but enough. hopefully its not too wrecked, oil pressure did start to dip though. hoping to clean things out a bit, buy a new balancer and get some more life out of it.

Duncan_GT

Pull the oil filter and cut it open. If there's any metal = bearing is toast

petrock

I think the balancer may have contributed to the problem, but it may have been a snowball effect. Some vibration or alignment issue caused the balancer to wear out prematurely which only amplified the underlying vibration/alignment issue. One of the key jobs of the balancer is to balance the crank as it spins. If its out of balance the crank could come into contact with its bearings and wear them out. If they wear out, and spin you might as well replace the motor. It sounds like you caught it in time though. So as others have said, start working your way into the motor and inspect everything. Good luck...

aode08

Ive been there, dont waste your time or money, because if you just throw on the bearings, the crank will still lose oil pressure after year and back to square 1.

Yes the harmonic dampner is the blame, it happnend to me,I ignored the balancer.

The crankshaft has to be removed and polished or cut .010 to .030 to remove the burrs or scratches.However your oil is contaminated, the metal will ony destroy the new crank, in my case, i just tore the motor down and rebuilt by hand.

The crank turned and polished was only$125, then $45 for bearings $50 fluids $100 gasket kit.So for just under $350, I was good to go.I found most of the metal debris in the oil pump pickup tube and oil pan,nothing hot water with degreaser couldnt fix.

9165pt0

thanks for advice, I was just checking it out again today. oil pressure is actually good, checked with a mechanical guage. wot is good. but light cruise is not so good, a bit rough and slight misfire. and iam hearing a slight knock down in the oil pan on the passenger side the loudest. last night the knock went away, and it idles and drove smoother than I can remember in a while. and today, the knock was back and worse. yet still not as loud as a rod knock, but something for sure is knocking down there. almost sounds as if something is loose and bounces around. sucks last night it went away completely and today, back at it. a mechanic who lives down the street, came by and thinks it sounds like piston slap. im just fed up with the noise, and roughness at light cruise. don't even have the motivation to pull it at this point, it may just sit.