Hello all, I STILL have an oil leak coming from the front timing cover seal around the harmonic balancer. I removed the balancer and the timing cover several months ago for the same problem. The Harmonic Balancer has the usual two deep groves from nearly 400,000 miles of service. The FelPro gasket set came with one of those sleeves that slide over the end of the balancer shaft to give the new seal a smooth surface to ride on.

Unfortunately, the sleeve is not deep enough. As luck would have it the edge of the sleeve straddles where the outside groove already cut into the balancer is. Hard to describe.... there were two grooves already cut into the balancer. The sleeve covers up the inside groove but doesnt go deep enough to cover the outside groove. In fact it covers up half of it. I didn't notice this when I installed the sleeve several months ago so I installed it and put everything back together. Still leaked oil, but I thought maybe I needed to wait for the seal to seat in. The leak just got worse so here I am again. It appears that the edge of the sleeve cut the new seal since it was not deep enough.

So.... my question is.... I am just wanting to buy a new balancer for my six. LMC Truck sells one and I know I can still get one from Ford. What I was wondering is, IF I get a new balancer will it throw off the balance of my SIX? How are the 300 Sixes balanced?? Best place to get a new balancer?

Thanks in Advance

Scott in Old East Dallas, Texas

 

Partial help. Inline six is internally balanced.

 

I bought a new balancer from Summit, about $80 IIRC. As long as you buy one for a 300 the engine balance is no worry.

 

So.... if the 300 is internally balanced does that mean if I get a new balancer it just needs to be balanced to itself??? So basically I can buy one from anywhere and it should not throw the balance of the engine off?

 

That is correct.