reversed harmonic balancer?
 

When I lined up the marks on the cam and cam tower my harmonic balancer was 180 degrees off. I rotated the engine around 5 times and thats what it is. How is this possible?

Maybe someone put the harmonic balancer on wrong. It can be done.

I thought it was keyed to go on one way?

yeah
 

i dont think it can be put on wrong. the keyways are not 180 deg apart.

i bet you are confused about where the cam is supposed to be in relationship to it.

tom w

Explain in more detail, please.

I can't come up with any scenario that would allow the balancer to be off by 180 degrees. There can't be any error on the camshaft because it would be an error of 90 degrees...........clearly impossible.

rg2098

Please dont take offence, but I just gota ask...you do know that the crank goes around twice of once on the cam...sorry, i just had to ask.

brian
 

so do you have an explanation?

it seems logical to me that he is confused.

i dont think i am.

tom w

I already explained that I don't have any scenario that makes sense.

If you do..........I'm all ears.

It could just be the compensating washer. It has keyways 180 degrees from each other. It probably wasn't put in with the key on the notched side.
That would explain it being 180 degrees off.

danny

with the camshaft thrust washer being 180 degrees off........the crankshaft would be 360 degrees off..........

Delamination
 

I had the same issue with my 1970 MGB a few years ago. The rubber between the two halves of the harmonic balancer delamintaed, allowing the pulley to move relative to the half bolted to the crankshaft. It wasn't a constant slip, it was an intermittent walking slip that threw the timing marks off. Everytime I had to set the ignition timing, I had to find TDC and put a spot of paint on the crankshaft pulley.

I'm not sure if the Benz harmonic balancer is of the same design, but it might be worth taking a look.

I am not confused on how to align the marks. I have revolved the engine around 5-6 times and every time the cam mark comes off 180 degrees from the TDC indicator on the harmonic balancer. My father has looked at it and come up with the same results independent of me.

so, adam
 

does it run?

tom w

This is not what you said in the first post.

In the first post, I understood that the crankshaft is 180° rotated from approximately 0° when the cam marks are lined up.

In this post, you state that the cam mark is 180° from your expected position when the crankshaft is at TDC.


If the second scenario is the true situation, then it's a simple solution and the thrust washer needs to be installed 180° from it's current position. I do believe that it's possible to do this.

I think that the second post is just not worded very well, and that the first describes the problem.

I bet on a slipped balancer. I've seen this on many vehicles. I haven't seen it on a Benz, but I haven't worked on many.

If the balancer has slipped, you need a new one.