Thread: Is there any harm in leaving this in place??

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I installed a crankshaft rotation adaptor (one of those 3 bolt plates with the 1/2" ratchet drive in the center..see pix.) I didnt want to rely on turning the center bolt to rotate the engine. Had issue finding TDC with a new motor/new dampener/pointer, which has been resolved (I HOPE). The engine is in the car and not a lot of room to work between the pulley and the radiator, and its a major pain in the waazoo to put this thing on and take it off and thought it might be handy to have it in place from now on, but......
My question is this: Once the center bolt holding the harmonic dampener is torqued to specs, is there any problem with leaving this adaptor bolted in place on the harmonic dampener?

Yes! Big problem. That adaptor is neither symmetrical nor balanced, and will throw your harmonic dampner out of balance.

And besides that, how are you going to bolt up the pulley?

it IS bolted to the aluminum serpentine belt pulley in the pix...to the face of it.

Thanks. The pix was skewed a bit off center, as it was taken with my iphone poked down in the 1-2 inch gap between the cooling fan and the pulley so it shows the adaptor as being off center somewhat, when in fact it isnt. It is actually symettrical and is centered on the dampner via the 3 equally spaced and centered pulley bolts that attached it to the dampener. I wonder if this would work if I removed the 4th "bolt hole" ear and made it the same configuration as the other three ears....? I suppose I could bolt this up to another dampener and have the unit spun to see if it spins ok like that while duplicating engine rpms 0-5k.

It is not symmetrical at all; that one ear without a bolt in it is a big imbalance looking for a place to boogger things up. That, and the fact that it is a cast piece, and there is simply no way to know that it is balanced, or even able to be balanced, even without that extra ear..... unless you take the rotating assembly out and take it to a machine shop and have it balanced with the adapter on it --- not the best solution.

My problem with your intention is that the piece was never intended / designed to spin at the RPM's your talking about.

Maybe it'll be okay? Or maybe it could come apart!?!?!

Just thinking, if you took it off and carefully cut that fourth ear off matching the profile of the other two sides the piece would be symmetrical, and given that it's centered in the rotating mass and not very big in diameter it's not going to impart much force to the dampener but why take a chance? It's a cheap casting not designed to be operated at speed, and if it ever DID come apart Murphy says it would be at the worst possible time. I'd take it off.

You'd be better off turning it with the center bolt.

bad idea period. no need for it on a built motor . if you need to turn the motor pull the plugs and use the center bolt or a flywheel tool .

good advise...and what I needed to hear. Its coming off this morning...