This has pobably been dicussed numerous times, but here goes agin. Looking for information regarding the removal of the balnace shafts and chain. I know the left silent shaft can be deleted by using a oil drive chain and sealing the oil feed hole in the bearing journal. And it looks like the rt silent shaft behind the oil pump could be too. Advantages, disadvantages.

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Buy the balance shaft elemination kit from NAPA. Includes everything you need (chain, special bolt, ring to seal the oil feed hole, gaskets, etc) and complete instructions -- not that this is rocket science! Best I recall the kit is about $40 or so.

I got rid of mine about 20K ago, and haven't had a problem. You may have vibration related problems if your engine is seriously unbalanced (I semi-balanced mine in rebuild) or if you have aluminum brackets, which are reported to be prone to crack from vibration after the shafts are removed.

Terry

Thanks I will check into it. On a scale of 1-10 what would you number the vibration without the balance shafts. I know it can't be as bad as having just one behind the oil pump.

I would imagine that lwaving one shaft in would be far worse than taking both out! The I understand that the shafts "balance" each other out, as well as engine vibration. Leaving one in might make the truck undriveable!

I balanced the connecting rods and matched the pistons when I did my rebuild, so it may or may not affect the vibration I feel. On a scale of one to ten, with the engine with both safts installed being a 5 (and the higher you go the worse the vibration) I would put the engine with the elimination kit at about a 5.5 or 6 -- I can barely tell a difference, if at all.

Some others who have eliminated the shafts without balancing have had more vibration, but I guess it depends on how out of balance the engine is to begin with.

The hardest part of installing the kit is removing the timing cover. The shafts pulled from my engine with only a hefty tug with my hand (after removing the bolts, of course).

Terry