yo rev,
i am going to buy a 1982 mercedes 300SD tomorrow. now we can exchange car repair tips..i'll keep everybody posted later after i get the car. good luck with your repair.

Upon looking in the FActory service manual under the balancing of the crankshaft counterweight - it shows mounting the weight in a special bench vice and drilling holes in it to balance it.

My question is this:
Since the parts yard gave me the balancer still attached to the dampening plate and pulley and removed it from the parts car's crankshaft via the center bolt with the three washers - shouldn't that alread be balanced as long as I don't disassemble it?

Why couldn't I just remove the one on my car from the crankshaft via the center bolt and bolt the other one on there exactly as the old one was? Because if you are balancing the counterweight off the crankshaft - then the one off the old 1982 300sd parts car should be balanced and just go right onto mine.

Let me know what you think. I'm sure someone has an answer to this.

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1982 300SD Light Blue
2002 Honda Accord SE
1974 Toro Wheel Horse Tractor
2000 Toyota Tundra Pickup

yes and no, yes it is balanced but it's balanced to the orginal crankshaft. the counter weight from your new one is not balanced with YOUR crankshaft. unless is your counter weight is damaged, you need to use your old one.

Rev, the balancer is adjusted with the weight of the crankshaft AND the flywheel. This is why I suggested heli-coiling the existing balancer.

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

Heli-coiling is quite simple.

Some ppl prefer "time-inserts" which don't require a special(AKA expensive) special tap. They do require more e/d(more material for tapping).

I would buy my new bolts and washers as nessary from the dealership. The EPC might even show the length and washer thicknesses as needed. A proper bolt length (aerospace) is 1-3 threads showing. No more, no less.

As mentioned, you want to loctite the new bolts and torque them properly.

Michael

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Michael McGuire
83 300d
01 vw A4 TDI
66 Chevy Corsa
68 GMC V6 w/oD
86 300E

The purpose of the balancing process that you read in the FSM is to match a new balancer to the original one. This is done by mounting the new balancer 180 degrees out of phase from the original, then removing metal from the new balancer until the two balance as mounted. That essentially "copies" the original. The original balancer is not in balance with itself. So you cannot just bolt on the junk yard balancer. However, it is possible that the junk yard balancer could be matched to the original, depending on the location and degree to which metal was removed from the donor part. But that is probably not the easier option.