harmonic balancer- WTF MATE?

[AndrewM]

I've never seen this happen before. I take the drive belts off and I notice that the harmonic balancer looks "unusual." Being the inquisitive guy I am, I decide I must investigate before eating my (soon to be) charred hamburger (which sucked). I slide the outer half off. That's right, the half OUTSIDE of the vulcanized rubber was seperated from the inner. So my girlfriend has a harmonic balancer that is in two peices.

Now, I've never seen or heard of anything quite like this. How did this happen? I have one idea, but it is perfectly seperated on the grooves. Clean as a whistle. It looks as if the two were never even joined. The pulley ate into the oil pan and block. The "edge" of the oil pan that hangs over the block is gone, and it just now started to skim the physical block, which is why I believe the two seperated. The top part struck a part of the block, stopping it, and excerting that amount of force spinning X Rpm just seperated the two halfs. The idler pulley was also destroyed, the cover was missing so I cannot rebuild it. Just a weird damn day.

The worst part of this is she hasn't even had the car for 50 miles.

-Andrew

[locknload]

It happens alot with Jeep 4.0s but with a whole lot more miles than 50. The rubber is a vibration dampner, it appears hers was not bonded correctly. What kind of car and how many miles?

[AndrewM]

Geo Prizm, car has around 270k. Not sure if it's the original motor or not, but everything looks clean. Turns out this isnt just an uncommon thing. Mercedes have it bad apparently.

[Flashmn]

its common, happened to my friends GZE.

[ShawnM]

Happens a lot in older or higher milage cars. Just did one on a 93 lexus es300 last week. New one was around $300 just for the part.