GMC Harmonic Balancer

If you want to get more power from your engine, you are left with two choices – to buy it or to build it. It is way easy to buy a new engine for your GMC but that can be very expensive. So most owners prefer to do the good old-fashioned way and that is to modify the old engine or to build a powerful engine all by themselves. Sometimes, this scheme can save bucks and can even raise the owner’s satisfaction quotient. Assembling your own engine will permit you to decide what’s going on into the engine. But in doing this home-brewed scheme, you should be guided by the steps on engine building.

Whether you buy or build your GMC engine, the tendency is, it will cause vibration as its components operate. And this is where the importance of GMC harmonic balancer comes in. Not much has been said about the harmonic balancer, but it is one of the important components that give us a comfortable and pleasurable ride. Otherwise known as vibration damper, the harmonic balancer is a component that’s linked to the crankshaft to minimize torsional vibration.

Your GMC harmonic balancer works this way: As the cylinders fire, the power will be transported via the crankshaft. It is the front of the crankshaft that takes in the impact of this power, so it usually moves before the rear portion of the crankshaft. This is where the twisting motion came from. As the power leaves the front of the crankshaft, the halfway twisted shaft unwinds and snaps back in the opposite direction. And though small, this unwinding process yields torsional vibration.

To control this vibration, a GMC harmonic balancer is connected to the front section of the crankshaft. The GMC harmonic balancer is usually made up of two pieces joined together by rubber plugs, spring loaded friction discs or both. When the power coming from the cylinder reaches the front of the crankshaft, it attempts to twist the heavy portion of the damper. However, it ends up twisting the rubber or discs which connect the two sections of the GMC harmonic balancer. The front part of the crank cannot speed up like the damper that’s attached. It is because the force is wasted in twisting the rubber and speeding up the damper wheel. This process makes the operation of the crankshaft calm and minimizes its vibration.