Auto Repair by and for Dummies

Harmonic balancer, small-block Chevy

More than a few of the drones who wrote for... errr, "contributed to" eHow.com were prone to the MSU¹ method of answering the questions as they pretended to be experts. One giveaway for this syndrome is the citation of obscure print books as references instead of linking to something online that a curious (or suspicious) reader could verify. In part, that's why one of our staffers flagged multiple DotD winner "Alibaster Smith"²  for his attempt to tell people "How to Troubleshoot a Harmonic Balancer," which can now be found at ItStillRuns.com.

"Smith," who's already graced these pages three times, revealed in paragraph number one that he had abso-friggin'-lutely no idea what he was talking about; telling the world that,

"The harmonic balancer in your vehicle is a pulley that sits on the end of your crankshaft. It is typically on the driver's side of the engine."

Uh, kinda, Al. A harmonic balancer sits on the end of the crankshaft, but it's not necessarily a pulley and your bullshit about "typically on the driver's side of the engine" reveals that your real reference was a how-to for a specific vehicle with a transverse engine. You can be darned sure that the harmonic balancer on many engines is at the front, not on the side.

All that renders more than half of Smith's "instructions" moot, since the first four steps (90 of 174 words) are about removing the wheel and wheel well lining to get a view of the part.

Smith also claims that,

"If the balancer wobbles at all, it needs to be replaced. This is the only reliable sign you will get that your balancer is about to fail..."

....which is utter bullshit. It's one of several signs that the crankshaft pulley, aka the harmonic balancer (or harmonic damper) is about to go tits-up.

If, you're trying to diagnose whatever vehicle Alibaster found instructions for somewhere online, you're good to go. The biggest problem is that he wasn't honest enough to reveal whether that was a 1999 Honda Accord or a 2001 Volkswagen GTI... or whatever. Hence, Smith's collected yet another another Dumbass of the Day award, with prejudice.

¹ MSU: Making Shit Up.
² Also runner-up for the most creative fake name ("Jagg Xaxx" won).

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