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Ford Explorer Community - Maintenance - Modifications - Performance Upgrades - Problem Solving - Off-Road - Street
Explorer Forum Covers the Explorer ST, Explorer Sport, Explorer Sport Trac, Lincoln Aviator, Mercury Mountaineer, Mazda Navajo, Ford Ranger, Mazda Pickups, and the Ford Aerostar
There is a layer of cushioning between the inner and outer sections of the harmonic balancer/damper. It is there to protect the crankshaft from damage due to vibration. If the inner and outer sections were bolted together the isolation would be compromised. That's why you can't use a three jaw puller on a crankshaft damper. Underdrive pulleys include the inner and outer sections. I believe that blower speeds are usually modified by changing the blower pulley size instead of the crankshaft pulley size.
It was organized under 1998/ explorer/ 5.0/ belts and pulleys/ crank pulley
the description makes it sound universal.
that aside
The balancer looks like 2 pieces. One cast dampener the other is a sheet metal pulley. normally there is a crank hub which the balancer bolts to and then there is a crank pulley which bolts to the balancer. no rubber pads.
the explorer has a goofy accessory setup. the plane where the pulleys intersect is very close to the front of the block. my guess is that ford made a funky crank pulley to make every thing line up.i think that the dampener was cast then machined to match the surface of the crank. there is no separate hub. then a pulley is pressed in to the dampener.
so the ford lighting has a 7.5 inch crank. i only have a 6 inch. the blower already has the smallest pulley available for the M112 at 2.75 inches. with the 6 inch pulley i am only making 5 pounds of boost and there is no whine. so i have to go with a bigger crank pulley.
i hit the junk yard and got a 6.5 inch pulley and a 7.5 inch pulley. my plan was to take the pulley off my dampener and carefully weld the 7.5 to my pulley. making sure that every thing is aligned and centered. if i can't get the pulley out of my dampener i can still weld on the 7.5. it will be harder to get it centered and square while its still on the engine.
The Explorer balancer does not come apart. You can pull the trigger wheel off, but that's all.
You have two options, and those other parts won't work. I'd contact Todd of RPS to see if he'd sell his custom pulley from his Ranger. He had it made to go over the stock Explorer pulley, it attaches to it and is larger.
The best way is possibly more expensive. Have a custom balancer made like the two I have done, then you can use a 94/95 pulley. Unfortunately I think the largest SN95 pulley is the stock 302 pulley, it's just under 7", say 6.8" at most. The aftermarket stuff is made to add a pulley, not enlarge the main one.
I took a 7.25 inch pulley from a 3.8 mustang. I cut the inside of the pulley out to a diameter equal to the outside diameter of the crank pulley.
I basicly had a ring with a hub left.
I drilled 8 holes in the ribbed portion of the pulley. I welded 8, 3/8" nuts to the inside of the pulley. Lots of weld on all 6 sides of the nuts. I used 8 set screws to align the pulley. After tightening the screws I pulled one out at a time and drilled a counter sink in to the stock crank pulley. This should give the set screw something to drop into to keep it from slipping out of alignment or falling off.
The results:
With a 6 inch crank at red line the SC will spin at 11400 rpm. With a 7.25 inch crank the SC will spin at 13700 rpm.
With the 6 inch pulley at WOT ( 955 according to the throttle position sensor through live link dataloger ) I made 5 PSI boost.
With the 7.25 inch pulley I made 10 PSI at only half throttle (525 throttle position.) LOL
I didn't want to push it more because there is this crazy rattling noise i want to fix that first.
PS:
There was a big failure. The over drive pulley is over driving more than just the SC. It over drives the alternator the power steering the AC and the water pump. Over driving the AC, power steering ,and the alternator are good things. Over driving the water pump caused the pressure to increase behind the heater control valve. This caused the valve to explode. shooting coolant all over the engine bay.
hmm what to do about this. Valve might have just been old.