Hey Everyone,

I was in the process of replacing the Oil Pump O-Ring and Front Main Seal as I had a bad oil leak from the oil pump n near the crankshaft.

Once, I got to the crankshaft and I was cleaning the surface, I noticed this small 'D Shaped' metal insert in the crankshaft. It came out and I wasnt sure what it is supposed to do. I have never seen it or neither does the FSM mention it.

Is it some sort of a weight balancer or something? Crank is definitely not cracked or broken, the piece fits into perfectly. See Pictures:


Slot where the metal piece fits into:



Small 'D' Shaped Metal Piece:



How the Metal Piece fits into the Slot:



A lil history, this 22RE engine has been rebuilt by the previous owner, So, Im not sure if it is supposed to have this from factory.

 

crank key, that holds your balancer in place. It is 100% needed.
P.S. There is another key under the oil pump drive spline as well.
P.S.S. Consider yourself lucky it fell out on it's own, when I replaced mine I had a helluva time trying to get it off the crank.

 

It keeps the timing gear from twisting on the crank.

 

Thanks guys. Learnt something new today :-) ... I will fit it back into place once Im done replacing the oil pump O-ring.

Cheers.

 

I'm trying to install my pump drive spline and can't find any info about installing these keys.

My manual doesn't even mention the two keys, and they don't fit into the slots on this newly rebuilt engine I bought. Looks like the old ones were sloppily bashed out leaving marred up surface edges.

Should I just file the groves smooth and see if the old ones go in? Buy new ones and do the same? Seems strange they aren't mentioned anywhere, nor how they should go in.

 

They're called woodruff keys. So standard that your ordinary hardware store will stock them. So if yours are damaged at all I'd replace them.

But they might not fit if the shaft is banged up. Very gently file the burrs off the slot. You want the key to slide in nicely with no slop.