For anyone with the 4.0 SOHC that has a squeal that goes away when AC is on

[btm757]

I have a 2004 4.0 SOHC 4x4 with 72K miles and about a week or so ago i noticed i had a little squeak that went away when the ac was turnd on and yesterday I turned on my AC and I lost power steering and my Battery light came on. At first I attributed it to the AC cause it only happened when the ac was on. I thought the compressor was in the process of seizing up...

I grabbed the inner portion of the compressor and it spun semi freely. Its a variable type compressor so it gets tight then frees up and so on and so on , so I thought maybe it was a slipping belt , I replaced the belt and still the same thing.

Well I looked at it closer and come to find out my Harmonic Balancer had came apart. When a load was placed on the drive belt it caused the outer part of the balancer to slower around the center portion of the balancer.

Im assuming the small squeak I had to begin with was the balancer starting to come apart and the load form the ac warmed it up enough to stop it from squealing.

So what began with a squeal took me a couple hours and it is fixed now

And the new one 141 after tax from ford slightly different design than the original

So if you have a similar squeal this might be getting ready to happen to you so be sure to check your balancer