Harmonic Balancer - Kaput

12/08/2012

I think I may have been driving the car more than it had been driven in years..one day I began hearing what sounded like a bad pulley..off and on terrible sound. I found that the harmonic balancer / crank pulley had separated from the rubber insert and that the outer part of the pulley was turning independent of the crank.

There are a couple of places that rebuild these.. for approx $100 but I elected to buy a used one someone offered me (MG Experience Forum) for $40 which included shipping.

This is the bad pulley..you can see the cracked rubber insert..

To get to the crank with the motor still in the car I removed the radiator (was planning on replacing coolant and hoses anyway) to free up space to unbolt the steering rack as it needs to move forward slightly.

To break the crank nut without the crank turning, (after flattening the lock washer) I connected a socket and breaker bar and wedged it on the front suspension and slightly bumped the starter..I got this idea from an old thread on the MG Experience Forum, it worked great.

Ready for new pulley

Waiting on the pulley to arrive provided some might as well opportunities...like cleaning up the fan and pulley, replacing heater hoses, repairing the windshield washer pump, etc

Bad pulley (left) and new 

Everything put back together

In all not a real difficult job, but was time consuming..