My flywheel was from the wreckers, for a manual. Anyways wondering if its balanced, without having to go to machine shop. If it were, would it have little divets taken outta the plate? It looks like someone just took a drill to part of it to take out some weight to get it balanced. Could be wrong.

Thanks for posts in advance.

Ivan.

One of the easiest ways to tell if a flywheel is supposed to be balanced or not is to look at the bolt pattern. If it has an evenly spaced bolt pattern then it is most likely a balanced flywheel, unless of course there is a keyway somewhere. The basic reason that a keyway or offset bolt pattern would exist on a flywheel is to make sure you have the weighted part of the flywheel in the right place.

However if it looks like someone has tampered with you flywheel I’d not use it at all.

Aaron

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I don't know how to tell the difference between balanced or otherwise, but I can tell you that the "neutrally balanced" flywheel I just bought from the dealer for my TDC has the same type of holes drilled in it that you describe. They sort of go about 3/4 of the way through. One other thing I can add is that if your flywheel is from an 85-87V6 it will only work on an 85-87V6. The 88 has a "neutrally balanced" flywheel and costs close to $300 from the dealer and is not compatible with the earlier flywheels.

-Rick Stewart

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85GT Turbo 3.4TDC/5-speed in progress
http://www.thestewartconnection.com/fiero/fiero.html

The pre-88 flywheels have a weight cast into them. To make it neutraly balanced that weight has to be machined off till it is even with the rest of the flywheel.

All flywheels are balanced. That is what the drill holes are for. If they weren't balanced, the engine would literally shake apart in no time.

In general, most flywheels are "neutrally balanced" meaning they do not play a role in crank balance. The crank and flywheel are balanced separately.

For some reason only god knows... GM used the flywheel to balance the crank on some V6 models. In this case the crank and flywheel are balanced as an assembly if you want the best balance posible. This has always been a nasty way to balance a crank.

Note that if the crank balance wheight is milled off on the flywheel, the flywheel needs to be rebalanced. Simply milling it even isn't accurate enough. Even small amounts of imbalance can shorten engine life considerably.

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