I have a Holden commodore VP (australian make) and I have just been told my harmonic balancer has just gone on me, and has to be replaced, will this upset the overall running of the car? and how will it affect the balance of the crank shaft, and because I started up the engine several times to try and find out where the noise was coming from will this upset anything else in the motor?
also I had the harmonioc sensor replaced a couple of years ago, will this now need to be replaced to?
With a bad or missing harmonic balancer, your engine will idle very roughly–just as if it was unbalanced, actually. The first problem that I would expect is damage to the motor mounts, and over the long term, that can be a safety issue.
It is possible that internal damage to the engine could also occur, but I think that this is much less likely than damage to the motor mounts.
The harmonic balancer dampens the torsional modes (vibrations) of the crankshaft. If you run it long enough w/o the balancer you may fatigue the crankshaft to the point of failure or destroy the crank bearings.
I’m assuming the harmonic sensor you are referring to is the crank position sensor? If you so, you shouldn’t have to change that again.
I had to have that replaced on my 1995 Prizm. It was starting to sound pretty bad and not suprisingly, I was told that if I didn’t take care of it engine damage could result. I think it was at least a $400 job. Engine ran just fine afterwards though. Good luck.