I have my newly rebuilt motor about ready to go in a car. Before I did that, I wanted to double check my pulley alignment as I've had trouble with this on big V8s. Sure enough, with the dampener bottomed out on the snout, the dampener groove is about 1/16" or more too close to the timing cover to line up with the water pump or power steering pulleys.

I pulled the dampener and measured it's depth where it goes on the snout at 1.855". Measured the distance from the tip of the snout to the oil slinger: 1.172". Verified my balancer against the other two on the shelf. All were within .01".

With the balancer installed so that it lines up with the water pump pulley, I measured the snout face to the face of the dampener: .683". That means I have .073" to go before it bottoms- right about that 1/16" number I mentioned above. All of this was with calipers, but depth measurement with these is tricky, so figure these numbers as "reasonably" accurate.

It seems unsafe to me to leave the dampener not bottomed out on the oil slinger. That much misalignment is visible by eye out of the car- possibly unnoticeable in the car. Before anyone asks, I also tried two other water pump pulleys and they line up. Also, since this location lines up with the power steering too, it would seem to be the "correct" location.

What should I do? I'm kind of stuck right now because the whole point of this was to get a Denso alternator lined up correctly before I stuff this thing in the car.

Bottom the damper on the crank. You'll damage the crank if you don't. Pull the water pump and push the hub back so that the pulley lines up with the damper. I would not be afraid to shim the PS pulley, but it might be easier to move the PS pump.

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Joshua

I'd have to move the whole power steering pump back since like the water pump, it's too far out (away from the front of the motor). The way it mounts, I can't see an easy way to do this. You'd have to open up the C-shaped mount that attaches to the block and put a shim between the front leg of it and the front part of the bracket that attaches to the pump.

I guess before I do that, I could try moving the whole bracket back in case it has some play. But I checked this when I put it on and I thought it was pretty tightly indexed.

I agree that leaving the dampener not fully bottomed could be an issue, so I guess this is the only way to go unless someone else has another idea of where the issue might be.

Also for what it's worth- I measured the water pump flange face to the block, where the pump mounts as it's installed: 4.0". I measured the old pump too, and it looks to be right there if you account for the thickness of the gasket. Again- not the most accurate measuring going on over here today, but probably close enough.

Could you use some kind of spacer between the damper and slinger? Perhaps trim down the OD of another slinger and use that if its thick enough? Sounds like maybe the crankshaft timing gear may be a little thinner than original? Just a few thoughts,hope it helps. Cheers

I've had a similar problem on one of my builds- I made a spacer from a washer of the right thickness- pressed on the balancer & added a center bolt & washer. Didn't have any problems.

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63 Valiant Wagon
225 - 4 bbl

Yeah, I thought about a spacer. Either making one out of an old slinger, or just trimming one up on the lathe. I assume that would work OK- and I planned on running a bolt into the crank to begin with (I can't believe they didn't do that from the factory).

Being that the weekend is over, I have 5 days to ponder a solution. I am leaning toward a spacer- .080" would do the job, and I have a lot of pinion spacers hanging out. I wonder if any of them would fit.

I ended up making some spacers on the lathe (with help- I'm no machinist- yet). Careful measurement told me I needed about .075" thickness, but while we were at it, I cut .05" and .1" too. Might as well do it while the tooling is set up. The balancer is on nice and tight, and the pulleys lined up nicely.