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Thread: Repairing Previa Harmonic Balancer Oil Sealing Surface

  1. #1
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    Repairing Previa Harmonic Balancer Oil Sealing Surface

    Copied from a post I made to the Yahoo Previa Group. While looking to fix some oil leaks, I saw I had some scoring on the shaft of my harmonic balancer where the oil seal rides on it and used an SKF "Speedi-Sleeve" to repair the surface.

    While there are mentions of these sleeves around the internet, it didn't seem to be common knowledge at places like NAPA, where they only catalogued sleeves for particular vehicles, typically older Chevys, Fords and such.

    The Speedi-Sleeves (and there are also "Reddi-Sleeves" which are the same thing) come with a flange at one end that's used to push the sleeve on to the shaft, then sits out of the way - it could be removed by cutting a slot in it and peeling it off using a pre-scribed line on the sleeve, but there's no need in this application. The complication, documented below, is that the tool that comes with it (looks like a metal spray can top) can't push it down far enough, so you have to find something else (a pipe, or in my case a ri(d)gid shop-vac hose extension) to completely seat it.

    I trimmed it after putting it on, but don't think that was actually necessary in this application. It should be noted that SKF warns about having the edge of the sleeve extending beyond the sealing surface because it poses a risk of cutting into a new oil seal during installation - that didn't seem to be a significant risk to me with the Previa crankshaft oil seal, but I went ahead and trimmed it anyway mostly because I was curious to see if I could.

    There is a Youtube vid where a company rep demos the right way to install it while mouthing the written instructions almost word for word. Many of the following Youtube search results for "Speedi-Sleeve" showed people literally doing everything he said to avoid, from heating the sleeve to pounding the install tool around the edges instead of at the center.

    There are a range of sizes available - the one for the Previa is #99189. I registered on the SKF site to get the chart, but found it listed elsewhere later. I was fortunate to immediately find one on ebay for under $11, but full price may be more like $40-ish. A new harmonic balancer is just under $200. I honestly don't know if leaving the groove alone would make a big difference in oil leakage - I'm sure it was there at 270Kmiles when I last replaced it (probably thought it was supposed to be there). There were so many other leak points I never would have known, and my priorities were higher at the time, like fixing the head gasket rather than nuisance leaks. Now, at 310K, years later, worsening leaks were now real disasters waiting to happen, along with regular-type disasters like busted CV boots...

    Speedi-sleeve components.jpg

    Speedi-sleeve excess length.jpg

    Speedi-Sleeve tool is not deep enough.jpg

    ShopVac Hack for Speedi-Sleeve.jpg

    Speedi-Sleeve excess length left intact.jpg

    Grinding speedi-sleeve.jpg

    myprecious.jpg

    HB with trimmed speedi-sleeve.jpg

    Trimmed speedi-sleeve.jpg

    Closeup of ground speedi-sleeve edge.jpg
    Last edited by man_btc; 03-04-2019 at 05:34 PM.

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