The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Timing Gear Cover Guide?

I have a 1946 Chevrolet Utility, 1958 235 engine, 12 volt system.
Looks like I will be dropping the oil pan and timing cover. In reinstallation of the timing gear cover, it appears that I will need the crankshaft seal guide.
GM Part # J-966
http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/shop/1942/42csm0614.htm
Has anyone made one of these, or can I find one locally?
Thanks,

Dale

You will literally never find one of those centering guides.

Your harmonic balancer tube is just shy of 1 1/4 inch inside diameter. Your harmonic balancer tube is right at 1 3/4 inch outside diameter.

Your centering tool inside diameter is most important. Your outside diameter is least important because you are dealing with a soft rubber seal, simply a snug fit will do.

A simple solution is to find a rubber hose which about 1 1/8 inside diameter, about 1 5/8 to 1 3/4 inch outside. Cut off a couple of inches, slit the hose lengthwise, grease it up inside and out, then slip it over your crankshaft end. This will work just fine.

A little imagination and work, you can find what you need at a Home Depot store in the plumbing department. Look around at 1 1/4 plumbing fittings and gaskets for sinks. Some white PVC tubes are very close, like the ones with a "swedged" end, a larger diameter end designed to slip over a pipe. There are large flat clear soft plastic seals, type you use to join drain fittings, which are just about right. You can "imagineer" together something which will work. Kinda Mickey Mouse but will work with a little imagination.

Anything which will slip over your crankshaft end and is about a 1/4 inch thick will work. Some large rubber "O" rings from an auto part store are suitable, bit frustrating to align an O ring with your seal, but can be done. I think Home Depot has those O rings in a multi-drawer bin box in the "fasteners" section.

Other possibles are rubber tips for chair legs, rubber sleeve pipe adapters in the ABS / PVC pipe area of Home Depot, oddball metric size radiator hose, air filter to valve cover hose and the old standby, a deep 1 3/16 - 1 1/4 ratchet socket. Try some metric sizes as well.

Best bet, costs a bit, buy a cheap used harmonic balancer off Ebay, have a machine shop lathe off the tube and bore the inside diameter out a few thousandths of an inch. Explain what you are doing, the machine shop will know what to do.

Final analysis is you will discover using a centering tool or not using a centering tool makes diddly-squat difference. There are so many screws around the edge of a timing gear cover, centering is virtually guaranteed, hard to get this wrong.

You know your timing gear cover will move around and tweak as you tighten down the bolts. Kinda pointless to work at keeping it perfectly centered on the crank.

I have installed with a centering jig, installed without one, no leaks either way; truly does not make a difference while your timing gear cover is in good condition and not a sloppy fit.

Billyray

Thank you Billyray,
Rubber hose looks to be a fair way to go. But, still kind of looking for the J-966 tool.
I think it would look nice in my toolbox, and I like the nostalgic appeal. Perhaps I should advertise in the parts wanted section? Has anyone out there made one of these? I would be happy to borrow it postage paid on my behalf, and send it to a machine shop for duplication. Who knows, perhaps some other bolters would be interested in a low production run?

Dale

You might want to do The old timing cover trick before re-installing.

It takes less than a minute with a flap wheel to convert an old 216 balancer to a slip fit alignment tool but if one wants to involve machine tools the method Denny Graham shared which included a provision for drilling/tapping the crank can be seen here:

https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=628736

Maybe Denny is already living off the royalty of those.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to hire extra help to keep up with the demand Curt.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

cletis, I'm with you on the old timing cover trick, already have a printed copy in my binder.
Curt B, sorry I don't know what a flap wheel converter is? Is this something a local machine shop has? I'm sure I can find an old 216 balancer.

Denny, on a serious note, I don't think I will be drilling and tapping my crank, but still looking for an alingment tool. Again, any and all leads appriciated.
Thank you,
Dale

I’m referring to using something like this held in a die grinder and moved in a helical motion parallel to the bore. Test fit so it will slide on the crank without sticking and if not polish a little more. Not much work required here to guarantee even seal pressure on the crank if a spare balancer is available and the pulley can be removed and the outside machined down to look like the tool if desired.

If you're going to a machine shop may as well just have the tool made. It's a pretty quick and quite easy job and aluminum would be just fine.

I don't think any of the rubber ideas are that good, may help some, but an accurately turned metal guide will be far superior.

I forget the installation tolerances for rubber lip seals, but thinking they are much less than you'd guess. And I'm sure for a long seal life no run-out is best.

Grigg