292 Inline 6

[oldsub86]

Looking for inline experts out there.

My truck has a rebuilt block with a metal plate on the side from the local rebuilding company.
My guess is that some of the parts are from the original engine and the issue is that there has always been a pulley mis-alignment. We made an effort to correct this a number of years back and it has basically worked but I have always wondered what the real answer was. We left the water pump/fan pulley as it was and trimmed a bit off of the nose of the harmonic balancer to make it slide in a bit further. We also trimmed a bit out of the mount on the alternator to make it move back a bit. Now I have a power steering box that I would like to install and as a result some further issues in order to mount the power steering pump.

So, does anyone know if there were different harmonic balancers oninline 6's? The timing marks don't work either so unless the outer ring has slid around on the balancer, it is not the right one for this engine. If I had the correct balancer, then the alternator might be fixable in terms of alignment.

[Tx Firefighter]

You need to to go Inliners International and look at their B board. Do a search on the engine board using "292" and "from the beginning". I remember reading about this problem several times over there.

['68OrangeSunshine]

The stock harmonic balancer for the 292 is a 2-groove unit. There is also a 3-groove balancer originally for bigger truck applications (40-50-60) that will also bolt up. Some people prefer the heavier balancer for smoother low rpm's. The 250 L6 balancer is too light in mass to work right on the 292.
A few high tech aftermarket balancers exist for the 292, but cost about $300 +.
As far as the timing marks: there was a design shift somewhere along the timeline -- Early L6s use a timing tab at 4'O clock, the later timing tabs are at 10 O'clock. [I suppose this makes it easier to read the timing light while you turn the distributer, since you don't have to jump over to the drivers side to read the timing marks.]
Age and/or over-revving can cause a stock balancer to "spin" and lose its true mark. 5,000 rpm is considered the redline for these engines stock, as they were designed as a lo-rpm hi-torque work engine, and not intended for racing. Not that that's stopping anybody from pushing the limits, performance -wise.
Do check out "Inliners".