How to Replace Harmonic Balancer 2011-17 Toyota Camry

Hey, everyone. Sue here from 1A Auto. Today we have our 2013 Toyota Camry in the shop. It's got the 3.5 liter V6 in it, and I'm going to show you how to remove and replace the harmonic balancer. If you need that part or any other part for your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1AAuto.com.

To remove the serpentine belt, you need a special tool or a really long wrench. In this case, it's a 14-millimeter head on a tensioner bolt. I've got the open end on our extended handle. We sell this tool on 1A Auto site, and it comes with several of the sockets and an extension for angles. I can use it just with this one with the crow's foot. Slide it right on that bolt of the tensioner, and you're going to counterclockwise. I'm going to go back like this. Now you can see the belt has no tension on it. I'm just going to reach down and take the belt off.

It does cause to be a little careful because heaven forbid the tool should slip and your fingers are down there. Once the belt is off, just take the tension off and take the tool, so you don't have to worry about it. Take it off all the pulleys. The crank is probably going to be the hardest one to reach from up on top here. Now I have the belt off of every pulley except for the crank and the actual tensioner. You can't get the tool out because the tension is all the way down, and it's bottoming out on the top radiator rail.

What I do is I leave the belt on the crank, and I'm going to hold the belt. I'm going to pull this pulley up, and I'm going to hold onto the belt as fast as I can and as strong as I can to take the tool off, and it came off the crank. I took the belt, it's around the crank, around the pulley. I brought it out back here under this wishbone motor support. Now I can take the tensioner right off and slowly let go of the belt. Then I just slide the belt up off the crank. Pull it right out.

To access the harmonic balancer, we took the tire off. You might be able to turn it to the side if you don't want to take your tire off. For us and for you, visual, we took the tire off and made it easier. Then you have this splash shield right here with two bolts holding it in. That's a little 10-millimeter socket. I'm going to take that off. Now Toyota usually has one more in there, it might be a clip. Let's see what we got. Yeah, just a clip. It's a nice little push-pin like most of Toyota's things are. There we go, take that cover right off.

Now we can access the harmonic balancer, and the crank bolt is a 22-millimeter socket. If you don't have an air gun, like 1/2 inch air gun, I don't know how else you would break that free because the breaker bar with extension, you still have to hold that crank from turning. I guess you could use a strap wrench, and then try to do it with a breaker bar with a 22-millimeter socket. If not, maybe you could borrow it to a rental. It's not a difficult job.

It's just the meaning of having access to an air gun. I'm going to back that crank bolt off. Now on Toyotas, the nice thing is that you don't need to pulley or anything. You just grab it and slide it right off. There's your front crank seal, and there's your harmonic balancer.

Here we have the original harmonic balancer from our 2013 Camry, and here is the one we got from the 1A Auto site. They're both the same diameter and same amount of grooves. They both have the same mark, not that you need a timing mark because it is a chain. You can't really time it because of the year. It's direct ignition, but it comes balanced. The factory one had two drill bits milled out, and it says it. That's four, and it has the rubber bushing in between. Any threaded pulleys in case you needed to actually pull it off, and then it also comes with a new keyway, which is nice. That's not pretty often I see that when I buy a harmonic balancer. Nice milled section that goes into the actual crank for the front crank seal. If you need this part or any other part for your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1AAuto.com.

Here we have the crank, entrance to the crank, front crank seal, and here is the keyway that came. We got a new one with our new harmonic balancer. I'm going to show you how to take that off with minimal damage. I always say that. I'm going to use a magnet. I don't want it to fall down inside there. I'm going to see if I can it without using a hammer. Sometimes it'll just wobble, come right out. Other times you're going to have to really work it. I think I'm going to end up getting a little hammer and tapping this.

I'm going to let the magnet stay on there, so hopefully if it starts to loosen up. We don't want that. There we go. It's starting to come out right now. There's our half moon key. Here's our new one that just came with the harmonic balancer, and that's the one I just took off. You could see they're milled at the same size. The reason why you want to change it is because this could have a little bit of play in it or wear, and you're not going to know unless you take it our, for one, and two, if it's not machine and milled precisely the way for this actual harmonic balancer, it could cause uneven wear or excessive new wear. If it comes with it, I say replace it. That's the old one. We're going to tap this new one in. I'll show you how to do that.

I've got the new keyway. I'm going to line it right up with the half moon section into the crank itself. Basically, I started it and pushed it in with my hand. Now I'm going to take a hammer, and I'm going to use the round part of my hammer and see if I can tap it in more. Now I'm going to see if I can use a little bit of a punch and see if I can get the back part of it in. As long as the front part is in, the harmonic balancer is going to see it when it goes in there. Even if you leave it like that, line the keyway up. The new harmonic balancer is going to force it to seat in there.

It went on 1/4 of the way, and now that key-way is up like this. I'm going to try to use the harmonic balancer to seat the rest of it down. If you don't have a puller or harmonic balancer installer, you could use a piece of wood and a hammer, but you want to tap on that gently. The force of a puller or installer is easier because it's best for it because it's just a smooth, slow push in. The jolting of the hammer--you have a timing gear behind here--and it's also a crank. As much as you think a crank is steel, it still should not be met with a blunt force.

Now I'm going to install my harmonic balancer tool. This has a center insert. You match up the threads to the crank bolt. Install them. Install this flat pulley. Basically, you turn this piece down in and hold the center shaft from turning. It just gives it nice, even, slow, it seats it right on there. Getting towards the end here. The reason why you don't want to practice using the actual crank bolt is because you can do damage to the threads. You can do damage to the crank, so it's best to actually have the proper tool, if you can. You can rent a lot of these tools now from part stores and national chains. They do a lot of rental even if you don't buy the parts there. They're fine with it. Now you can see how that's seated nice and flush--it's in there. Take our centerpiece out.

Now we'll get the torx back and see if we can torque that crank bolt. I'm going to examine the crank bolt. Make sure there's no cross-threading. It looks good. Manufacturers, some say two, and some don't. Some say to oil the threads. This one already has oil on it still, so I'm not going to overload it. I'm going to put it on by hand. The torque specs is 184 foot-pounds, so I'm going to see if I can do that. We're going to try the strap wrench that I talked about earlier, that if you have one, you can try the strap wrench to break it free, if you don't have an air gun. I'm going to try it to torque it. I've got my torque wrench set to 184. Let's see if it works. That looks like it's going to slide.

I tried the torque wrench. It's not working because I have no way of holding this, so we're going to go with the old fashioned air gun. Just keep in mind it's 184 foot pounds, which is not to reef on the air gun. You can actually take a marking if you want to just to give yourself a assurance mark. I haven't used an air gun on this yet, so I'm going to mark knowing that this bolt lines up there. Let's see if we turn it. Let's see if we can give it just 1/8 of a turn. I think that would be sufficient. That would be the maximum I would go with that.

Now we're going to install our serpentine belt, aka drive belt on a Camry. I'm going to bring it down through the top here. I'm going to show you a diagram of how the belt goes in case you don't have access to one, or if you didn't take a good picture. Just make it easy for you. It's going to loop down over the harmonic balancer around the tensioner and then come off the harmonic balancer.

Let's do that together and see if we can get both of them all down there together. Now that the serpentine belt is put on everything looks good. Check it, and make sure it's all in line with the pulleys, not off one by one gear, you know, one line of tooth. Before I put the shield on in the fender well, I like to run the car because I want to run it, make sure it goes around several times, make sure it doesn't slide off, or I can't foresee something, and it is off a rib. You don't want to have it all back together, and you got to do it all over again. We'll start it up and make sure it looks good.

Now that we've run our vehicle, I'm going to put the fender shield on. Remember that had that nose-piece that went up in the front here. That's got that little plastic pushpin. First thing I'm going to do is put one of the top bolts on. Then I'll put my second bolt. Now I can look up through here, put my push-pin in: 10-millimeter socket.

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