Technical SBC Harmonic Damper Questions

I stripped out the pulley bolt holes on my 283 last night while putting the pulleys back on. The harmonic balancer on the engine is almost certainly original. It's the riveted together 6" version (see below). The damper is press-fit on this engine, no crank bolt holding it on, and the crank is not tapped for one.

I plan on eventually replacing the damper, since the rubber is almost certainly bad, but for now I plan to tap the 3 bolt holes t0 1/2", so I can get the car put back together.

The question is: Are all internally balanced SBC dampers interchangeable? That is, can I take any old damper and press-fit it on this crank, or are later ones that use the bolt not able to be press-fit?

I would rather not drill the crank at this time. Just want to know if I need a specific type of balancer that works with the 283 press-fitment.

 

You need the earlier style to match your timing tab and have the correct interference fit - nice to see your still at it and welcome back

 

Thank you, and good point about the timing tab. The damper on the engine is a 6", looks like those are pretty hard to come by. I'm not too worried about the timing marks on the balancer itself, since I can just put timing tape in the correct orientation.

 

It looks like this may work? https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Prof...BC-Lightweight-Harmonic-Balancer-6-,1801.html

 

Says 350, ?68/earlier or (appears to be 69/later) with offset timing mark/keyway.
Worth a try but report back how it starts without changing distributor position.

 

Id go on ebay and search for a 283 harmonic balancer - find a good used one.....or, post a want add on here - just be careful of scammers replying lol

 

You need to find top dead center BEFORE you put any other balancer on it, especially something 50+ years old.

 

The crank is keyed, so it really can only go on the one correct way. But yeah, I’ll make sure to account for any differences in timing marks on other dampers.

 

What Brigrat is saying is that the rings on dampeners are known to move on the hub at times and the timing mark moves in turn.
Personally I'd heli coil the dampener and used the correct size bolts so I didn't have to drill the holes in the pulley out ruining the pulley for use with correct size bolts.

 

Drill the crank now! I've used the fat 350 balancers on several different 283/327 press fit style cranks. two of them flew off. The third one ate out the keyway and forced me to replace the crank. In comparison, threading the crank was cheap.

my 2 cents
.bjb

 

Another vote for drilling and tapping crank. Remember crank should be forged

 

Pretty easy to get them drilled ****eyed without some sort of centering sleeve.

 

There's people that sell a jig for drilling in car. One I looked at even had a channel to direct metal shavings away from the engine