Silent shaft/balance shaft belt

[Rattlenbang]

When I bought my van and replaced the head I discovered the balance shaft belt gone. I have no idea how long it's been like that, but it looked pretty old and crummy. I replaced the belts and tensioners and head, and that was over 30,000 km ago without an issue. Frankly, I didn't notice all that much difference. I wonder if someone didn't know the belt was gone and it was replaced, would they notice the difference?

[thedjjack]

I think any damage would be long term damage...

Oil spraying was added to turbo versions of the early VW Diesel..

Balance shaft may not be for big vibrations you see with your eyes or feel. It could be for small harmonic vibrations that destroy the crank or block over time. The GM 6.2L/6.5L prone to crank and block failure from these vibrations and seem to be solved with a $$$$ harmonic balancer and beater quality metal in the block....

I think not having the balance shaft spraying oil and balancing risks long term engine damage...

[Rattlenbang]

Well, oil spray is primarily cooling and so that depends on how hard its driven, and that not all engines have balance shafts, I'm not convinced its anything but a quirk of mistubishi engineers. They even had them on their four-banger gas engines, the so-called silent shaft engines of the 80s.

[thedjjack]

I have no idea of the balance properties... but on the highway L300 is working pretty hard....a little oil spraying seems like a good idea...