harmonic balancer quality issues

[kennyfred]

I've got a 98 sport with a 4.0l the last owner said at about 170000 miles the balancer pully came apart (the pully came off of the balancer) he put a new one on a cheap one 23 bucks and within a year it did the samething, ok, does the origial balancer have short life compared to the engine? or do I need to look for a engine?
thanks kenny fred

 

[SteelHeadz]

It's uncommon on the 4.0 I6 balancer to fail due to age or high mileage. I've seen a lot of these engines with over 400k and still has the original harmonic balancers..One of the causes for the harmonic balancer to fail prematurely is an oil leak either from the front crankshaft seal or a leak from the powersteering that would have saturated the sleeve between the balancer and the core. In the worst case scenario, a bad crankshaft may also contribute to the premature failure of this balancer. In this case, you will have an indication of such from an unusual vibration from the engine at a certain RPM.