If your Viper is out of warranty, check your crank hub bolt torque....

[Sean Roe]

They should be torqued to 250 ft lbs, but are more frequently not. The result if left too loose, the hub will spin on the crank snout. The bolt torque is what holds the hub in place, not the interference fit over the crank snout.
The hub is less than $100, but the crank would have to be removed and repaired if excessively damaged. Most times, they just ruin the hub.

This is sort of a public service announcement. We're starting to see more people buy the crank pin kits because their stock engine spun the hub. Under warranty, no problem. Out of warranty, check it as routine maintenance.

Regards,
Sean

PS to Dodge;
Please take 20 minutes and have one of the engineers modify the crank drawing to use a left hand threaded bolt for the crank snout / hub. Remember years ago when you used left and right hand threaded studs on the wheels depending on which side of the car they were on? We know you can do it

 

[Larry Macedo]

Sean is right on the money as usual. We have a 96 GTS in our possession at the moment with a very damaged crank snout due to the bolt backing out which allowed the damper to free wheel on the crank. The Viper has minimal mods, 27,*** miles and way out of warranty. I've enlisted the aid of our local Dodge dealer to help with the replacement of the crank so we'll see how far it goes. I would suggest pinning the crank as well as using loctite and torquing the bolt to 250 lb ft.

 

[ruckdr]

Procedure and pictures, Please.

Later,

 

[ViperGTS]

You mean the "crankshaft damper bolt"?

2002 Service manual, page 9-49, 9-50, fig. 92

250 ft lbs = 340 Nm

 

[ruckdr]

Got it.
Thanks ViperGTS

Later,

 

[Gregnice]

Is this easy to access? Forgive me for the stupid question?


G

 

[Steve Miehe]

I'll bet it's alot easier to access the crank hub bolt from underneath the car (once the car is raised a foot or two from the ground, or on a lift.

Geez, that's going to take a huge torque wrench.

 

[95Viper]

Pics?

 

[Ron]

Could we elaborate a bit on the use of locktite? I know that Arrow doesn't recommend it, that Dodge doesn't do it during assembly and was told by my tech that the threads are very fine pitched and that the use of locktite would perhaps cause issues later during a future remove and replace procedure.

Obviously as per Sean and Larry a weak design, but is the correct process to fully torque dry threads, lubricated threads or say the heck with it and use the locktite? Are the failures due to not fully torquing during reinstallation or is it inevitable that all will loosen eventually regardless of install torque? Lastly, while keying would prevent spinning, I don't see how it would prevent loosening of the bolt which I would think unchecked would lead to failure anyway.

Thanks