Im having trouble diagnosing what’s wrong with my 5.2. So there’s this noise coming from the pulley area and I believe it’s coming from the harmonic balancer. I took the serpentine belt off to inspect it better and It seems like the noise is coming from crankshaft pulley/ harmonic balancer area and it’s also shaking. If I turn on the engine it will stay on, but eventually it loses power. Is this a symptom of a bad harmonic balancer? I assume that it turns off because if the harmonic balancer is bad then the alternator isn’t being powered properly? I have a video but it wont let me upload it for some reason. Please help. I towed my truck to a mechanic and I thought they were gonna just change the harmonic balancer but they are telling me that the entire engine is bad and my only option is to replace it. Im thinking of getting my truck towed back to my place and doing the job myself.

 

Balancer being bad won't cause the engine to be low on power, or shut off, but, it will vibrate some. Low battery power will give you all sorts of odd and strange symptoms though. Did they tell you WHY they think the engine is bad?

Can't upload videos here. Upload to YouTube, or some other file sharing site, and then just link to it here.

Welcome to DF!

 

Here’s the Vid

& I haven’t spoke with the mechanic directly, my pops did. He just told me the engine was bad.

 

5.2 is internally balanced so it should be just a crank pulley, no “balancer”….5.9 is externally balanced/ has harmonic balancer…

That being said there shouldn’t be any wobble on your pulley

 

Technically, it isn't a 'balancer' at all, its a "Harmonic Dampener". They all have the outer ring, on some elastic base.

 

Both are similar having a chunk of steel connected by a ring of rubber to mitigate vibes:

but the 5.9 has a cutout to create counter-vibration/balance: