Pontiac Harmonic Balancer

Have you ever doubted the capabilities of your Pontiac vehicle? Probably not! After all, Pontiac vehicles are among those vehicles equipped with very powerful engines. Vehicle performance, however, is not all about the engine. Other parts of your Pontiac must also be capable of handling the power given off by the engine. The engine crankshaft, for example, must be able to efficiently transfer the power generated by the engine to the various vehicle parts that needs power.

In most vehicles, however, you will find a problem between the engine and the crankshaft. Each time that the engine delivers power to the crankshaft, the front end of the shaft takes the largest impact. This causes the front end to move faster than the rear end, resulting into a twisting motion. Then, as this power is removed, the semi-twisted shaft unwinds and snaps back on the opposite direction, causing some tensional vibration. If this tensional vibration won’t be prevented, cracks and breakage in the crankshaft would soon be discovered.

To prevent a lot of damages on the engine’s crankshaft, Pontiac vehicles are all equipped with Pontiac harmonic balancers. A harmonic balancer is a component mounted to the crankshaft of an engine to reduce tensional vibration. Because of its location and function, the component is also often called a crank pulley damper or a vibration damper.

A harmonic balancer is typically made up of three parts. A steel inner part is bolted to the crankshaft while a steel outer part is made up of grooves for the belt. In between these two steel parts is a rubber disk or spring loaded friction discs, or both, that serves as the main damper. As the engine powers the crankshaft, the rubber part of the harmonic balancer would get twisted instead of the crankshaft. This removes the torsional vibration on the crankshaft and prevents any damage in it. This makes harmonic balancers very important components for the proper performance and the longevity of the vehicle’s crankshaft.