crankshaft pulley

[mikeysmorris]

Hi all, molly let me down for the first time yesterday, i was waiting to pull out of a side road last night and i heard a metallic tinkle from the the engine bay just after the charge light came on, i had a quick look and saw the fan belt had come off but as it was dark and i only had a mile to go i drove it home, on inspection today i found this (please see attached photo), i have replaced the pulley and fit a new belt but i have no idea why this happened, the belt was in good order and had not been slipping so is it just old age ??, as anyone seen or had this failure i would like to know why[frame][/frame]

[Jefftav]

I don't think you are the first person this has happened too. Sounds like you have it all fixed up now but I belive you can by solid crankshaft pulleys that don't break up

[bmcecosse]

Yes - fatigue cracking - probably started by efforts in the past to lever the thing off. By far the BEST option is a proper crankshaft damper pulley as fitted to all later Mini engines - and i have to say ESSENTIAL for any hard revved 948 or 1098 engine. Sadly these are no longer available new (as far as I know- if anyone knows otherwise please let me know!) - so it's ebay/scrappy time. And yes - there are some 'solid' pulleys available new - not inexpensive, and very much better than the tinplate pulley - but not true 'crankshaft dampers' as such.

[mikeysmorris]

Thanks Jefftrav and Bmcecosse for you replies, i looks like eBay or the for sale posts the here as there is no real scrappy's near me i think the nearest would be at inverness and that's a 250 mile round trip , i checked the fan and all the pulleys only last week after seeing the posts on broken fans, i did not see anything wrong at the time so it has happened since then,
if i do find a mini type pulley i wont be fitting it until i have to remove the rad for any other problems that might occur as it was a right pain in the behind to remove the broken pulley, thanks and best regards Mikey.

[Neil MG]

Yes this is quite a common problem and on early B-series engines too.

[bmcecosse]

Surely must be some ancient Minis lying around up your way! This is the only one I can find... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MINI-A-PLUS-N ... 3a6752032b

Not cheap...

[MarkyB]

Both pulley and fan blades are becoming end of life items, both have failed on the car I go to France in.
To be fair they are only pressed steel items and have endured who knows how many gazillion revs in their time.
To be fair we are talking about 40 or 50 years, if not more, so not what you would call under-engineered!

[Jefftav]

Mikey, Keep an eye on Scotads as quite often there are mini bits being sold in there, if I see anything on my travels I will let you know.

[bmcecosse]

Harvest all the crank dampers you can find Jeff!

[brucek]

In addition to the above, it may also help to search on e bay for a Harmonic Balancer. This is the same as the crankshaft damper but in US English! I needed one for my 1275 engine rebuild - no idea where the original one went! Didn't want to pay the seemingly huge prices so found an original spec item from the US for £15 and £12 p&p. Amazing that it is cheaper to import than but at home!