I am in the process of converting an engine from a t bird to go in my truck. I installed the truck crankshaft damper, and am going to install the truck flywheel as well. I am starting to worry that maybe Henry balanced all that as an assembly, and I am going to make a shaking machine.

The flywheel is currently being resurfaced for the new clutch assembly. It didn't really need it, but since I am in there anyway, it seemed a good idea.


Both engines are presumably 292s. The tbird block is maybe a 57, the trucks block seemed to be a 59.

I do remember a local mechanic switching Ford engines in a farm truck, and using the wrong flywheel with disastrous results. But I think it was a 360 going where a 352 or something was.

Most are telling me not to worry about it, but worry I must.

Thanks,
Jamie
( I added some pics in my gallery under "Blue Thunder Dumper" if you want a peek.)

 

To setup the crankshaft for balancing, after establishing bobweight values taken from the balanced rod/piston/pin/ring weights, they will connect the flywheel, and harmonic balancer and give it all a spin for readout. In my case I didnt have the flywheel available, so they did the spin without it, only attaching the balancer. I am using an auto balancer on a 1963 truck motor. The flywheel and clutch pressure plate to go into use on the new balanced motor has been previously balanced, separate from the crankshaft. If I remember right, the pressure plate has to go into one specific position after the balance, to be correct. The machinist should make a mark for that on both pieces. You can have the balancer checked for balance separately if you want, and that may be either a good idea given its age, or an unnecessary duplication.

Except for possible differences allowed for different sized clutches, the flywheels for trucks and autos were the same.

After the balancing shop had attached all of the bobweights and harmonic balancer to my crank, they spun it to see how much weight needed to be added or subtracted and where. But the balance was perfect. There wasnt anything they could do to improve it. Pure Luck with the .060 over aftermarket pistons and car balancer!

 

I had mine balanced and the machinist told me that it was not required to have the flywheel. I also presume that he did not install the damper either.

I am planning to replace the damper anyway. He told me that the flywheel and pressure plate would already be balanced by itself.




I suppose that if available, the crank should be balanced with the flywheel, damper and pressure plate installed. That stuff is usually not available to the shop when they balance the rotating mass.

 

OK, now I feel like I have some idea whats going on here. I probably will just go ahead and install it and see how it goes. I was thinking they should be balanced separately, and I hope they were. But, in production, somebody with a business degree might have figured out a way to save some time, and that worried me.

Thanks so much for the ideas!
Jamie

 

The Y is internally balanced so there should be no issue in swapping dampers and flywheels unless it's been intentionally balanced differently since the engine left the factory. Here's a link specific to some of the balancing nuances.
http://thunderwords.250free.com/page110504.html