Funny sound, look what he found

My son has our truck and noticed a funny noise (somehow heard over the 3" straight pipes). He started to investigate and found this. The torsional damper (that is what the manual calls it, I call it a harmonic balancer) is coming apart. Does not surprise me, as it is a 44 year old. He changed it out, along with the lower hose. Whoever installed THAT was not the brightest bulb and we are lucky it did not fail.

The kid is becoming a champ.

He has learned "left handed frustration" or, throw the tool across the shop with your left hand to minimize damage.

I can't wait to get in that beast. Numbers matching 454/TH400/4:11 truck.

Tine to go to the drag strip...

I'm surprised that the belt didn't cut the hose.

When I was a teenager, I worked at a R&D shop and the senior engineer, who was in his 70's, specialized in airflow and was retired from NASA and other aerospace jobs, made me sit through a 2 hour lecture of his on the difference between harmonics and torsional vibrations. To this day, I have no idea what he was talking about but I did learn never to call it a harmonic balancer and only refer to it as a Torsional Vibration Dampener.

He passed away at 80yo probably 10-15 years ago. He taught me some great lessons over the years. I was restoring our '58 Matchless G12 and he said he and a couple other guys he knew raced them when they were new. He took me to his friends house to buy some spare Matchless parts, turns out I was at Bud Ekins house and the other guy he raced with was Steve McQueen.

The hose is cut, luckily it is on the good side of the clamp. Whoever changed the hose just stuffed it on and clamped it. The rubber from the TD/HB was AMOST through the old hose.

Adding a couple pics from when I bought it. It was a Texas panhandle ranch truck. Has a plate in the bed for the gooseneck. I will leave it there for traction.

@Bennyt,

What? You can't get enough of dense technical discussion of torsional vibrations?!?! Boy Howdy I have a treat for you!

Yout think an V-something auto engine has vibration pitfalls? Try the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 "Double Wasp", the 18-cylinder, 2x9 dual radial, air-cooled monster that cranked over 2,000 hp in 2,000 cu-in



The story of troubleshooting vibration in the crankshaft, with various torsional dampers etc, can be found here:


Good stuff starts here: