I was tightening down the 5 or 6 bolts that are for the lower crankshaft pulley(for the belts)on my 440 and one of the bolts broke off..can I just leave it that way or will it throw the motor off balance?

Thanks!

despite the balance issue, there is now one less bolt holding that pulley in place.

take the time and do it right, if for nothing more than peace of mind.

take it out.

Thanks for slapping some sense into me! I was on a roll and just wanted to keep going...sometime you gotta sit back and be patient.

I ran with one missing on my 440 for almost 10 years.The damper had one broke when I bought it.Never hurt a thing.I doubt that it would have any affect.If its out you might as well fix it though.Rocky

The bolt weight is insignificant when it's that close to center.

i only run 5 bolts in my crank pulley due to the pulley having an offset hole and the balancer does not. Never had a problem up to 7k rpm

Most of the time you can unscrew the bolt out the back when you remove the balancer. I had to a couple of times in the last 35 years.

Without the pulley on it, I've been able to back broken bolts out with my finger before. Just depends on how and why it broke. Just put the tip of your finger on the end and spin and see if it comes out. I've also had to drill them out and helicoil them as well and that takes more work.

If you're in a rush, see if you can get it to back out with the tip of your finger. I wouldn't run it without all six though. I generally have too many other problems to put things like that at risk that can generally be fixed w/o much problem.

If you can't spin it out with the tip of your finger, this may be an ideal application for a left handed drill bit.

Can you just let it go?

Depends on who you are. If I just let it go, it would come back and haunt me. You probably have better luck.

Thanks for all your help! I was able to use a small screwdriver to turn out the broken end.