Recently the awful noises my car tends to make got much much worse and we have come to the conclusion that my harmonic balancer is shot because the noise comes from there and u can see it moving back and forth. What I would like to know is if I can just replace it with a pulley or if I need a new one. Also Im doing a 6 bolt swap in a couple months, if I can just buy a pulley, will it work on the 7 and the 6 bolt? Thanks

I don't know if the harmonic balancers are the same between 6 and 7 bolt engnes. But I'm highly curious as to the movement your describing. Is it just the outer ring of the damper that's moving around on the rubber sleave or is the whole pully/crank moving back and forth (Crank walk, the reason I'm sure you are going to 6 bolt in the future.)

Im pretty sure the 6 and 7 bolt balancers are different. I think the timing mark is in a different spot.
Ive heard of them going bad, The rubber gets bad and starts to fall apart.

I had to replace mine recently on my 91 6-bolt because the rubber on mine was seperating. I had an occasional squeal, looked on the backside of it and the rubber was cracking. I paid a little over $100 for mine from the dealer, but it could vary because I've got a discount.

Do you think that is Asiankids problem also? Not to highjack the thread. But he gets this whining noise when he revs it up.

Well, I had a bit of a squeal before I got mine. While I was doing the headgasket, I inspected mine and the rubber was cracked all the way around. I have since replaced it and now there's no more squeal.

I recently replaced mine on the 7 bolt GSX...

mine gave no warning before letting go.

one day I just pulled out on the road and bam... it busted.
it also tore up a belt in the process, while I was in there I just replaced all of the belts.

I replaced mine with a part from the dealer and it seems to me that payed a little over $100 for mine also.

I am not sure if the balancer from the 7 bolt interchanges to the 6 bolt.

but it was a very easy fix... about 45 min worth of work from start to finish.

although, ever since then I have had a terrible belt squeel on startup.... probably due to me not getting proper belt tension on one of the belts.

Ben

Check the PS belt. I didn't tension mine correctly and I glazed a belt in a week.

I used a 2' pry bar on the PS pump to take out all the slack.

He was asking me about that squeel too. Could be the balancer...it didn't sound like a belt to me.

I only have 4-6 starts since the belt replacement.... car currently under the knife, so I will definately look at that while I under the hood.