Friend of the family complains that her car makes funny noise idling, backing up, with AC on. 2006 Mercury Mariner, 2.3L 4-cyl.

I take a peek and see the crank pulley running crooked. Tell her she should get the balancer replaced soon, before it causes more damage. RockAuto has 'em for like $50 and shipping. I tell her I have tools and we can probably do it here for cheap, as I have a harmonic damper puller for Northstar & similar engines. Turns out I was not quite correct.

She runs it by the dealer, where the line of BS is long and deep-
1) $500
2) Gotta replace the crankshaft
3) Huh, what? Oh "crankshaft is the new term for Harmonic Damper."

WTH, really?

The wife sends her to a local garage, they quote $300. She took it in yesterday and picked it up today. Total under $200. I asked the vehicle owner to bring me the used part, to see what was going on. The rubber was shot, but otherwise the unit was clean and not bad looking. WEIRD- there is NO KEYWAY... yet it has a toothed ring on the damper with a skip tooth, like a crank timing part that would mate a crank sensor. But how would one index it to the crank, without a KEYWAY???? WEIRD

There IS a small hole here, looks like it has never had anything in it.

Google this thing.
Evidently this happens A LOT to this type of engine.



Turns out, the procedure is not NEARLY as easy as I thought.

The repair REQUIRES a selection of special tools to locate and hold the cams and crankshaft just right during removal and installation. Severe engine damage can result otherwise. Ford "engineering" at its finest. The problem with using simple square or Woodruff key like we have done for 300 years with shafts and parts that need to be oriented properly on said shaft, is, what ???

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/rep...96b43f80eb98d0

Good Lord.
Yes, that is a toothed timing ring. A diamond coated washer maintains the position of balancer with respect to crank when the part is secured in place. The small hole is for a 6mm bolt used as an alignment pin during the procedure. After you perform this task, you have to spin the engine 2x or more to ensure that you haven't done it wrong and produced interference inside.

Sounds to me like she got a great deal on the procedure. The instructions above advise you when to "put the #1 piston at TDC..." but not one clue how to perform that task, how to KNOW FOR SURE that the piston is at TDC so that when you secure the timing ring, you know it is correctly positioned.


"WARNING
Do not loosen or remove the crankshaft pulley bolt without first installing the special tools as instructed in this procedure. The crankshaft pulley and the crankshaft timing sprocket are not keyed to the crankshaft. The crankshaft, the crankshaft sprocket and the pulley are fitted together by friction, using diamond washers between the flange faces on each part. For that reason, the crankshaft sprocket is also unfastened if you loosen the pulley bolt. Before any repair requiring loosening or removal of the crankshaft pulley bolt, the crankshaft and camshafts must be locked in place by the special service tools, otherwise severe engine damage can occur."

 

Glad you did not mess with it?
Some of the stuff is getting tricky, like valve timing in v8s with DOHCs.

 

Kinda brings a tear to your eye when you work on our relics, huh.

 

These relics are what I learned on and have more knowledge of. I find it much easier to diagnose point ignition, non-comp vehicles. Anything new, the first place I go is on a web search.