Our Balance Shop

All rotating parts (be it a fan, armature, wheel, or crankshaft) rotate around the center of gravity of that component.

The crankshaft of an engine has other components attached, such as the connecting rods, pistons etc. and as little as 28 grams of unbalance 4” from the center of the crankshaft will create an imbalance force of 252 lbs at 6000 RPM. An imbalance like that would tear an engine apart due to vibration.

We have recently purchased a new “state of the art” Hines Liberator Engine Balancer. This machine allows us to balance engines to less than 1 gram giving 100% longer engine life. When you have a custom built here, or are doing any engine work on your own, ask us about balancing your engine components before assembling the project. This is a simple way to protect your engine investment and ensure its longevity.

Balancing a Crankshaft

The parts we need for balancing a crankshaft are all the component parts attached to the crank.

Beside the crankshaft we need all the pistons, pins, & locks. All of the connecting rods with bolts and nuts, 1 set of Piston rings, 1 rod bearing, the harmonic balancer and bolt, the flywheel or flex plate and bolts. Any machine work, if needed, must be completed to the pistons, rods, crankshaft and flywheel prior to balancing. We 1st match balance the pistons to the lightest one in the set by removing material off the balance area near the pin boss. We then take the lightest connecting rod and balance both the small end and big end of the rod. The overall weight of the rod is important but the farther you get from the center of gravity the larger the imbalance would be so each end is equally balanced. We then do the calculations on the weights, and on V type engines (4,6,8,10,12 cylinder) we build a bob weight to mount to the crankshaft to simulate the total weight of the reciputating components (pistons, rods, etc.). The corrections to the imbalance are done after spinning the crankshaft at a set RPM and letting the balance machine calculate where to add or remove weight from the crankshaft counter weights, harmonic balancer or flywheel.

Besides balancing crankshafts we can balance a variety of other automotive, marine, and industrial parts that spin at a variety of RPM’s and stop premature bearing failures and vibration problems.