I will say in all the years of being ASE certified I’ve never in my life seen a goofy harmonic balancer as my 2000 3.8 has. It had a massive oil leak around the main seal and timing cover area so I took it apart and found what is either scoring grooves or I’m just going nuts over nothing. The main seal itself doesn’t look all that bad, I mean it’s by far not new looking but wasn’t rough enough to wear a channel on the collar of the balancer/dampener. When I saw it I had already had the timing cover off and immediately put the balancer on and snugged it up to see what it was hitting. There wasn’t one place I saw it hitting, and where the scoring is at is behind the main seal. So anyone have any clues? Ever seen this before? The new balancers are expensive as all get out for these year model cars. If it’s going to cause me an oil leak I may just take it down to the local machine shop and have them fill in the grooves and then slap it back on, or try and find someone with a donor car with a harmonic balancer for sale. I’m a disabled law enforcement officer, and vet, and was literally screwed over big time by the shop that put a new clutch in it yesterday and didn’t have the flywheel turned. Never told me how much it was gonna cost or what was wrong with it, and I get there and it was almost $700 for a clutch. I documented all the parts they’d messed up, and what all wasn’t put back together, and plan on showing the city council members it this month. He wiped out nearly half of my months check and didn’t even fix it right. He knocked around my trans so much that he actually caused a exhaust leak at the collector. Here’s a few pics of the balancer. If anyone has one for a 3.8 in the years specified let me know.