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Thread: Balance Shaft Belt required to start?

  1. #1

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    1984 Dodge Power Ram 50

    Balance Shaft Belt required to start?

    I recently bought a rusty ole beater power ram 50 custom...a mouthful of a name, from the original owner. it only had 128k on it from 1984.
    It ran great the first night i had it, brought it home after driving 10+ miles, parked it in my garage for the night, and there it sat. That was 2 weeks ago.
    At first i reckoned the coil died because it had no spark at all when turning it over, so I replaced the entire ignition system except for the distributor.
    It started for a second or two, ran for ~10 seconds, then the engine cut off, with a buzzing sound like a piece of paper stuck in a fan.

    I then figured I needed to check out the timing belt. I cranked it with the starter, but the Timing belt wasn't moving.

    I got the lower cover off last night to find alot of fuzzy belt shreds behind that cover, as well as no balance shaft belt, it had been shredded up and was laying on top of the timing belt.

    I know alot of you were saying that the balance shaft runs the oil pump, so i don't want to be running it, but would that belt be causing a no start condition too?

    The engine turns over at the crank, seemingly just fine, and with the T belt off, the head also turns with resistance, but it feels OK...maybe. I'll need to check if I bent any valves, but from what I've read it's not an interference engine (g63b).

    I'm going to spend as little money as possible on this thing, and if i bent the valves all to heck, it'll likely end up in a junkyard.

    What all testing do I need to do in order to make sure the engine is salvageable before I go and buy a new oil pump (too scared not too, at least the seal, there was alot of oil behind the covers) front main seal, both belts, new serpentine belts, and all the other stuff to make the engine happy?

  2. #2

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    1990 Mitsubishi Mighty Max
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    balance shaft wont stop it from running.... timing belt not moving will

  3. #3

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    But what would likely cause the timing belt to strip its teeth? all of the teeth that's touching the crank cog were completely ripped off. Could the head have crashed, and locked it up enough to rip the teeth off? if it did that, then why would the head be able to turn now? Can I tell if the valves are all bent up if I pull the valve cover, or do I have to pull the head in order to find that out?

  4. #4

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    Sometimes the belts just get old and weak.....then the teeth strip. You could have a bigger problem like loss of oil pressure especially since the balance belt drives the oil pump. Id put new belts on it and see if it runs before removing the head. Or get a leak-down gauge to pressurize the cylinders and listen for air coming out the intake/exhaust.

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