Bit of a scare... and a bit of advice....

Took the Charger out for a bit of "spirited driving, it was a nice cool day so I figured what the heck. Anyway after a quick 2nd gear blast I started hearing that "uh oh" chirping from under the hood....luckily I was near the house so I limped it on into the garage. I noticed my Power steering went away so.....

FORTUNATELY all it was was my crank pulley came loose and slung the belt....

We tend to forget....ESPECIALLY WITH BIG TORQUE STROKERS, that were slinging stuff around with a heck of a lot more force and with a much higher rate of acceleration than these motors had to deal with stock....and in some cases we're DOUBLE the horsepower.

It pays to Loctite all the little bolts in the front too, we all remember the flexplate but sometimes not the pulley in front. Oh and use all 6 bolts, I know BB Chevies only use 3 but we're not the bow-tie boyz

I almost lost the balancer on my pickup engine years ago, but I caught it before it came off. I have no idea if someone before me didn't tighten the bolt enough or what the deal was, but it slid forward and chucked the belts off.

Fast forward to rebuilt engine #2 a few years later and the outer part of the stock balancer started to seperate off the rubber ring. Caught that one before it ended baldly. No more re-using 30 year old stock balancers for me!

I did put a brand new stock style one on the last engine I built, but a I painted a thin white stripe across the two halves so I can see if anything has moved whenever I have the hood open.

Instead of loctite a guy could drill and safety wire flexplate bolts etc. too.

I had the converter bolts back off in my Valiant yesterday at Kearney. I am usually very good about Loctiteing them in. Missed it this time.

Many years ago on a late nite deserted road I was involved in a less than legal exceleration contest I was driving my warmed over '77 Fury police package car. At about 6200rpm it shed all the belts with enough force to grab and wrap the tranny cooling lines around the dampner.Dave

Wize, Good advice Thanks

I think I got it...

-Don't run power steering, belt can come off

-Avoid automatics, they have converter bolts that come loose, and cooler lines that can wrap around the damper.

Right?

-Charles
(sloooowly building a 451, 4-speed, manual steering A-body)

this is back in the 90's. just getting into racing. i was driving my 72 challenger on a weekly basis to the track to have some fun. on the way home one night all of a sudden the motor started to vibrate violently. uh-uo, shut her off and pulled over. after a quick inspection i found that i ripped 3/4's of the lower pulley off the balancer. all the bolts were still attached and it was hanging on by about 1 1/2" of metal. funny thing was the belt was still on

I had my starter fall out on the return road... Well not out, it was hanging by the wires...

Yea I know I had my balancer bolt back out and I lost my harmonic balancer this weekend. Glad you caught it in time. Ron