How can you tell when one of these things is goin south?? If I have the following symptoms anyone may list that are correct. That will lead to the obvious questions like, how much, OEM or aftermarket, hard disassembly and assembly and so forth. Thanks for any help, appreciate it.

 

The balancer on the 5.2L is just a piece of steel, not much can go wrong there.

The balancer on the 5.9L is steel in the middle and on the outside but there is rubber sandwiched between them. This rubber will come out over time, or at least thats what happened to mine.

 

That is what is happing to my 5.9. I need to replace it. Autozone had them for $70 or so. Do the have to be pressed on and off like the Chevy's with a special tools? I can't remember.

 

Both are steel with a rubber insert.

the 5.2 has no counter weight. The 5.9 has a counter weight to balance the weight on the Flexplate. It's called an externally balanced engine as the crankshaft is balanced by those 2 weights.

On either the 5.9 or 5.2 look for cracking rubber in the harmonic balancer, or if the rubber appears "cupped" or shifting to the front or rear, it needs replacing as the outer weight is being shifted off center of the center weight.

combustion in the cylinder causes vibrations along the crankshaft as the piston is thrust down during the combustion process. At various RPMS, these vibrations can amplify as the harmonics or "rhythm" of the vibration waves feed each other. The Harmonic damper dissipates the force of these vibrations by passing them thru differing media (steel/rubber/steel again). The transfer to the rubber and then back to the outer Steel ring is what dampens the vibration and keeps the crankshaft from damaging itself.

 

Some flavor of puller will probably be necessary to at least convince it it wants to let go, once it breaks loose, you can probably pull it off by hand.