explorer balance shaft??

[gruesome]

G'day all from down under,
i have an explorer motor out of a 4wd auto 1998, its been transplanted into my ford (mecury over there) capri but i noticed on some of the explorers over there particularily the 2wd versions that you do not have a balance shaft on some of the sohc?
so here is my question, is it essential? can i remove it without drama's? has anyone else done this??
any help would be much appreciated,
thanks
Ben

 

[Russ in CT]

There have been a few posts about that before, can you just remove the balance shaft chain, and essentially not use it, will it cause any problems, but I never saw anyone definitively state they had indeed done it. Several said they thought it should be OK, and I agree.

But why were thinking of disabling yours? On our 2wd versions that did not have the shaft, I think it was just cost cutting. Its not that the 2wd couldn’t have benefitted just as much from the balance shaft, Ford just assumes that over here anyone buying the 2wd wants rock bottom price, even at the sacrifice of civility (plus they can advertise a lower ‘starting’ price).

PS – We don’t have any Capri’s here anymore, Mercury or otherwise. When we did, they were based on the Mustang. Back in the 70’s it was radically different looking than the ‘stang, then in the 80’s it was a ‘stang with a different rear hatch (all glass). But I think I did read something about a new SUV or crossover or something they were thinking about resurrecting the Capri name for.

 

[gruesome]

the reason i want to delete it is to get better clearance from the cross member, as removing this then modifying the hump where it used to be will give me enough clearance to not have to modify the crossmember,
the 70's capri's u are refering to are european cars, but the 80's were just rebadged stang's, and as for the new one, not so much a suv but maybe an awd based on the european focus i beleive.

 

[IZwack]

The balance shaft is above the SOHC's bottom oil pan -- it is inside the "ladder frame". So unless you have mad fab skills to modify the aluminum ladder frame, I'd say leave it. You will have to modify/remove the oil pickup first before you worry about the shaft balancer since the oil pickup is below the "ladder frame".

In the pic below (dont worry about the missing tensioner ) , the ladder frame has been removed and the shaft's balancer is the semi-hidden cylinder coming from the bottom-left corner of the picture: