balance shaft seized up!! help
Mar 17, 2009, 06:56 PM
#1
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balance shaft seized up!! help
well like the title says my balance shaft seized up. i was driving home from work normal not beating on the car and outa no where i hear a loud belt sqealing sounds and shut car off asap. looked couldnt see any thing so took my shop for further info. well after pulling all the pulleys and t belt covers off i found the shaft is seized up but didnt break the belt just ripped the cogs off. The car has great oil pressure i have gauges installed and always watch and never has lost pressure and still remained to have perfect presuure when this happened.
so my questions are:
why would this happen and what would have caused it??
is it bad to leave it in there and just take the belt off and drive car?
do i just buy a elimator kit and be dun with it ?
is everything else fine internally most likely?
so my questions are:
why would this happen and what would have caused it??
is it bad to leave it in there and just take the belt off and drive car?
do i just buy a elimator kit and be dun with it ?
is everything else fine internally most likely?
Mar 17, 2009, 08:30 PM
#2
Hmm thats an strange issue. Haven't heard of that one before....
Are u running a shaved/modified balance shaft for a 2.3L stroker? And do you daily drive your car or is it a weekend/track car. If its a track car, you can go with a eliminator kit, but if it is daily driven, I would probably recommend trying to fix the problem and keep a working balance shaft in there. Yes it will cost you a few HP, but the harmonic cancellation provided by the balance shaft will be gentler to your oil pump and engine in the long run. Mitsubishi engineers didn't just throw that thing in there for ****s and giggles, it serves a uselful purpose and removing it has its downsides.
The vibrations transmitted over the long term can lead to damaged oil pump and worn engine mounts or possibly minor annoyances like rattles and creaks in the chassis. These issues will be less of a problem for a dedicated track car that sees few miles and frequent engine maintenance, but for a daily driver the situation is different.
As for if everything is fine, I would be a bit scared about the bearings...
As for diagnosis, maybe you might want to pull the oil pan off and take a look at the balance shaft from under the car. Maybe you might be able to see some signs or clues as to why its stuck? If the bearings have seized up it could be bad news, metal could be in the oil.
With the oil pan off you can pull pull the rod caps off and check those bearings too. If you catch metal in the oil early before any damage to the crank you should be able to salvage it all and fix it relatively easily. On the other hand, if rodbearings show signs of severe wear damage, your main bearings could be messed up to. Sadly the only fix for that is to pull the whole motor out, clean that dude up, and rebuild it with new bearings...
You might want to run the drained oil through very fine strainer/filter and get the oil filter cut open as well to see if any metal is in there.
Best of luck, hopefully its not a bearing issue and you won't have to worry about all this
Are u running a shaved/modified balance shaft for a 2.3L stroker? And do you daily drive your car or is it a weekend/track car. If its a track car, you can go with a eliminator kit, but if it is daily driven, I would probably recommend trying to fix the problem and keep a working balance shaft in there. Yes it will cost you a few HP, but the harmonic cancellation provided by the balance shaft will be gentler to your oil pump and engine in the long run. Mitsubishi engineers didn't just throw that thing in there for ****s and giggles, it serves a uselful purpose and removing it has its downsides.
The vibrations transmitted over the long term can lead to damaged oil pump and worn engine mounts or possibly minor annoyances like rattles and creaks in the chassis. These issues will be less of a problem for a dedicated track car that sees few miles and frequent engine maintenance, but for a daily driver the situation is different.
As for if everything is fine, I would be a bit scared about the bearings...
As for diagnosis, maybe you might want to pull the oil pan off and take a look at the balance shaft from under the car. Maybe you might be able to see some signs or clues as to why its stuck? If the bearings have seized up it could be bad news, metal could be in the oil.
With the oil pan off you can pull pull the rod caps off and check those bearings too. If you catch metal in the oil early before any damage to the crank you should be able to salvage it all and fix it relatively easily. On the other hand, if rodbearings show signs of severe wear damage, your main bearings could be messed up to. Sadly the only fix for that is to pull the whole motor out, clean that dude up, and rebuild it with new bearings...
You might want to run the drained oil through very fine strainer/filter and get the oil filter cut open as well to see if any metal is in there.
Best of luck, hopefully its not a bearing issue and you won't have to worry about all this
Last edited by ktk; Mar 17, 2009 at 08:32 PM.
Mar 17, 2009, 08:53 PM
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well a little info on the car and the engine is that i do daily drive it and it is a 2.3 stroker, built head on e85 blah blah blah . but i never changed the factory balance shaft out for a differentlike you said to pull the pan and what not i planed on doin so to check everything out i just havent got around to doing so since it happened lastnight and tore into it today to see what the problem was exactly. so should i do the removal kit or place another balance shaft in there?
also for awhile now my factory oil light would flicker every once in a while after driving for an hour or more but i have after market oil pressure gauge along with out installed which i watch very close and never has the gauge shown a loss of pressure. so my ? is could there be presure where sending unit for gauge is and not where the factory one is ?? maybe that has something to do with why it seized up. but when it happened the car had 75psi oil pressure and everything was going just fine.
also for awhile now my factory oil light would flicker every once in a while after driving for an hour or more but i have after market oil pressure gauge along with out installed which i watch very close and never has the gauge shown a loss of pressure. so my ? is could there be presure where sending unit for gauge is and not where the factory one is ?? maybe that has something to do with why it seized up. but when it happened the car had 75psi oil pressure and everything was going just fine.
Mar 17, 2009, 09:54 PM
#4
I just went through a simular situation with the oil pressure light, mine would flicker once in a while after a long drive. Ended up having bad bearings main and rod bearings. If for some reason there was metal coming off your bearings it could of contaminated your balance shaft bearings and siezed it. If your balance shaft is siezed its more than likely the bearings are shot. I would say be on the safe side pull the motor and bring it to a machine shop have them clean EVERYTHING including the >>>oil cooler<<<. Better to be safe than sorry, if you just through a new balance shaft in and there is metal in the oil your going to end up spining bearings and risk breaking a rod. If you pull the oil pan off I would check the oil pick up screen for metal if there is metal in the oil there would be some on there. Also most good machine shops can test used oil for metal contamination, drain your oil and bring it to a shop and that will tell you what to do for sure.
Mike
P.S.
I would go with the AMS Race Balance shaft elimination kit. It replaces the stock balance shaft on the oil pump with a shaved shaft, my friend with a 2g eclipse has had a simular kit for 2 years with no problem and he drives the car 1 hour to and from work everyday.
Also when my bearings went my oil pressure was normal but my oil light still flickered.
MikeP.S.
I would go with the AMS Race Balance shaft elimination kit. It replaces the stock balance shaft on the oil pump with a shaved shaft, my friend with a 2g eclipse has had a simular kit for 2 years with no problem and he drives the car 1 hour to and from work everyday.
Also when my bearings went my oil pressure was normal but my oil light still flickered.
Last edited by Stradag; Mar 17, 2009 at 10:00 PM.
Mar 18, 2009, 08:07 PM
#6
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In 1st and 2nd generation DSMs the balace shafts were a common point of failure, hence the long history of balance shaft elemination kits. Once the problem occurred owners didn't want to chance it again.
This problem seems to be mostly cured in the current Evo engines but any moving part can fail. The balance shafts spin at twice engine speed so lubrication is important. I'd suggest installing a known accurate gauge at the oil pressure switch location and checking that you have good oil pressure there when the engine is warmed up. Balance shaft bearings have been found in the pan when they fail. I'd suggest you look.
If everything else looks good I wonder how much vibration you would get if you simply failed to replace the belt and ran with one balance shaft.
This problem seems to be mostly cured in the current Evo engines but any moving part can fail. The balance shafts spin at twice engine speed so lubrication is important. I'd suggest installing a known accurate gauge at the oil pressure switch location and checking that you have good oil pressure there when the engine is warmed up. Balance shaft bearings have been found in the pan when they fail. I'd suggest you look.
If everything else looks good I wonder how much vibration you would get if you simply failed to replace the belt and ran with one balance shaft.
May 10, 2012, 07:24 PM
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Can you run ur evo on a seized balance shaft by just not putting on the belt. if so, what are the long-term efffects. Mine seized and I am wondering-- to save money. thanks guys.
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