The bronze looking thing hanging off the engine is all part of the balance shaft assembly. Its pretty simple to remove. You just have to cut the chain somehow, I used a dremel, and turn the crank to roll the chain out and remove the bolts holding the assembly in.
A couple shots of it once its removed so you can see how big it is.
Everybody likes internal engine shots
While I was at it I pulled the oil pickup tube and inlarged the opening on it. I forgot to take a before pick but the stock opening is pretty small and inlarging it is suppose to help oiling in the upper RPMs and free up a couple HP. I was already in there so why not?
This is the most important part if you plan on doing this. You have to block off the oil feed for the shafts. There are several methods for doing that and I went with one of the simpler ones. I did it this way. He goes over it really well and has a lot of pics so I won't bother saying much other then it was really easy.
And the after shot. After getting it all back together I only noticed a tiny bit more vibration at idle which doesn't bother me at all. Some people have oil starvation problems in high speed turns after doing this since the balance shafts act kind of like a baffle system but being a minivan I am not flying around to many curves and haven't had any problems. You do have to add an extra quart or so of oil to take up the extra space but I consider that another plus. To me the engine feels like it revs easier and has a little more power but thats all probably in my head.