Fluid dampener pulley alignment question

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K.O. SWINGER

K.O. SWINGER

Meeting in the alley since 1976
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So classic mistake, I bought a new fluid dampener for my 340 in anticipation of my rebuild. But in a gross oversight my new balancer is approximately 1/2 in wider than stock. My question is I know some of you are running fluid dampeners what did you use for a crank pulley or how did you solve this problem. Thanks in advance.
 
You must have got the old style fluidaper that is thicker than stock. The new ones are the same as oem and line up to stock pulleys.
I have used both styles. For the old design I had to order one from March. Is the front face of your balancer flat or is it dished?
 
You have two choices. Three actually. One is pretty cheap, one is a bit more and last (and best option IMO) is the most expensive.

1. Assuming you have the 70 and later water pump and no power steering or AC I can sell you my water pump and crank pulleys (made by CVF), but you will have to make up your on spacers and you’ll definitely need a spacer between the water pump and the water pump pulley.

2. Same assumptions as above, I can give you the part numbers for the CVF pulleys and you can buy new ones from them. And you’ll still have to make up your own spacers and you’ll still need to space the water pump pulley away from the water pump.

3. You can call March Performance and spring for the serpentine kit they have. They have a part number just for the Fluidamper and it actually overdrives the water pump like it should be.

I just thought of a 4th option. If you can send back the FD you now have I believe FD has a part number that has a recess so you can use stock pulleys.

There is a reason any decent damper is thicker. It’s because mass is one of the elements of dissipation of torsional stresses placed on the crank by the firing cycles.

Because there is only so much room to fit a larger diameter damper in there, you get forced to go thicker.

I’ll take the PITA and expense to fit a tuned damper to the engine over a compromise just to get the damper to fit.

I’ll go see if FD has a part number for the recessed face damper for a Chrysler.
 
MoparMike1974 said:
You must have got the old style fluidaper that is thicker than stock. The new ones are the same as oem and line up to stock pulleys.
I have used both styles. For the old design I had to order one from March. Is the front face of your balancer flat or is it dished?
Click to expand...


And...............tree’d. Damn. Getting old sucks.
 
Thanks yellow rose, I won't be switching over to serpentine belts I keep stock appearance throughout my car as much as possible. I do not have power steering or air conditioning it is all a a 1970 340 setup it just seems like with all of the crank pulleys produced for small block mopars that there would be something that would fit better. And take less spacing.( Flat-faced)
 
Post a picture of the front of your damper so we can see which one it is. March has an off the shelf pulley for the old style and that is all you need.
If its the new design it should line right up as long as everything else is stock.
 
Flip the alternator pulley over or use the 2nd groove of a double groove one and get a 1/2 spacer behind the water pump pulley. you may put more wear and tear on the pump bearing but pumps are cheap unless its a date coded water pump. This problem mirrors an industrial espionage story about capacitors: Some company made a newer cheaper capacitor dope but it was not good, the doping formula broke down fast and made them expand and blow the end seal and stop working. Well, the proprietary formula got stolen and everyone started to make these cheaper bad caps (badcaps.com). All of sudden all these devices were failing because the cheaper bad dope was being used by everyone now. Vibratech/Fluiddamper made their first design with no offset, and an overseas company copied it "warts and all" so they copied a bad design to start, then someone got wise and said 'wait, these don't really fit that well so lets scallop the front so the friggin stock pulleys line up', and then that design started to get repopped. So if there is a production date on that box or damper itself, tell us what it is. It must be 15 years old!
042712164019.jpg
 
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Okay okay it's a knockoff, speed master. It looks to be a nice unit but I'm not dealing with this it's going back there are too many good options to jerk around trying to make this work. Thank you for your advice and experience.
 
Its OK...mine was a C.A.T...! Hey, we all try and save a buck here and there. :p you can probable find the newer 2.0 version from Speedmaster somewhere that has the scallop, or spend $200 more for the real McCoy. Another quirk: the factory crank bolt is too short too......Merry Christmas.
 
Its not that difficult to make it work. Order one pulley and find a longer crank bolt, done.
But yeah, im glad fluidamper finally fixed this problem.
 
I can also vouch that the new fluidampr bolts on no problem and belts align just fine. Just bought one off summits this past summer for my stroker.
 
I just had the same problem with my 340. I used a pre-69 two grove crank pulley which does line up with my post-69 water pump and Saginaw power steering pump pulleys. I did use a shim for the water pump pulley. The power steering pulley was fine, it can be adjusted with washes. The bolt I bought off of eBay for a little over $10.
Hex Head Flange Bolt 3/4"- 16 x 3" Long "1 Bolt" Grade 8 3/4-16x3 | eBay
 
Forgot to mention. The early pulleys are 1/2” shorter and look stock. Industrial supply stores also carry bolts of the correct grade and length.
 
If it was mine, I would send it back for the newer one that fits as stock. JMO.
 
Little late to the party, but there's a bolt on option. March performance 10151 crank pulley has the correct offset for the early fluidampr/SM/CAT/etc. It doesn't require any shimming, but it's single groove only, so WP/ALT only.

You can also run the 69 and earlier crank pulley with the 70+ water pump, but I think that still requires a shimming both accessories.

IMG_20200905_163038.jpg
 
Having to shim up pulleys because a balancer is not made correctly it totally unacceptable bullshittery. They've made every other make engine balancer correctly EXCEPT Mopar. All the rest are bolt on and go. That's on Fluidampr. It shouldn't be up to the customer to correct their mistake. If they are making the correct balancer now, I would send it back for a replacement. Anything else is unacceptable.
 
Innovaters West and even ATI need to be spaced according to both websites.

You just about can’t make a damper OE sizes and expect it to work IF you change bob weight, change the RPM, change the crank materiel, change the stroke or any and all of the above.

That’s why main caps fail (its not detonation like everyone thinks), that’s why cranks fail (it’s not bad forgings, bad castings, detonation, heavy pistons or anything else) and that’s why bolts come lose and all kinds of maladies.

I posted a link in the racers forum of a webinar that covered a ton of this stuff.

The damper has to get thicker because it can’t get bigger in diameter. Look at the Direct Connection Hemi damper. It was made thicker. It’s all they can do.

If you change any of the above and are still running an OE damper you are taking a chance for no real reason other than saving a few bucks and some work.
 
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