For lack of better things to do, I started minor disassembly of a 1982 vintage 5.0 I've got in my garage. I'm doing minor cleanup and accessing what I have. I yanked the balancer off, and after cleanup and inspection, I noticed the rubber that was exposed has a few cracks in it. I'd say it's your typical dryrotted rubber, but not so bad that chunks are missing.

Long term plans are to build a decent street motor for a hot rod. I'd like to build some horsepower, but I'm not going to go too crazy on high dollar items for this project.

My question is, how can I determine if I should reuse the damper, or spring for a new one? Is there a proper "test" or inspection? I've never had one go bad, so I have no experience in dealing with this.

I do plan on balancing the reciprocating assembly, so I'd hate to have to replace it soon after a rebuild. On the other hand, I don't exactly want to spend money on parts I don't need.

So what would you do?