HELP - Pulley problems

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 5:31 pm

And of course, one of the sole reasons I can keep myself on track in school and a reason to live.

Hope these didn't take too long to load for everyone, if they did, sorry and let me know and I'll just make em' links.

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 5:45 pm

about your car, is it an NA with turbo wheels or a turbo with na trunk?

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 5:59 pm

It's a good ole' NA, FWD. I just got the wheels two weeks ago, wanted a good aggressive tread for snow driving and the dirt roads. I also wanted a wheel that would fill up the wheel well some and stick to the road better. I have to say I love them. She doesn't seem to top out at a high of a speed but the throttle response has improved and the handling is great. She stops on a dime and the tires leave a nice good foot print in the mud and snow.

cbose · Post by **cbose** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 10:33 pm

The pics look pretty bad, but it is worth a shot. Probably the hardest part will be to get
the pulley set on true. Set the epoxy (quickmetal, JB, whatever) first and use the pulley
bolt and washer to snug everything up. Check for true -- you may need to use some
shims to true up the pulley. Maybe a dry run first to get everything in the right place?
After the epoxy is good and hard you can remove the bold and washer, and drill in the
pins. I would go for two or three substanitial pins. LIke 1/4 inch. In addition to making
a key, they will 'bridge' between the pulley and the worn crank to provide some
extra strenght for the epoxy.

If you had access to a clean used pulley, you could get some of the clearance
out by using that, but then you'd have balancing problems. Does anyone know
if the pulley is balanced with the crank as a unit? If this is the case, a swapped
pulley might cause more problems than it solved.

good luck.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 12:42 am

The pulleys can be replaced without issue. I had to replace mine when a similar incident happened to my car right after I bought it.

Steve

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 3:48 am

Finally got to the house today and spent a good 7 hours working on my baby, whom I miss sooo very dearly. Here's what my father and I did.

Tapped the two holes in the timing gear (5/16x18). Then corresponding holes were drilled in the pulley (matching the keyway location of course) to accept a through bolt, this was going to be used in conjuction with a couple bars across the face of the pulley to pull things up to the timing gear. However, we found that if did this there would not be enough room for the crank bolt (the through bolts didn't allow enough room for the washer on the crankbolt). So what we did was remove the lip on the pulley (referenced earlier and seen in the pic) and resurfaced the back of the pulley slightly so that it was good and smooth. We then cut two small studs to screw into our tapped holes that were long enough to thread in approx 1/2 in. into the timing gear and then go into the corresponding holes in the pulley but were below the face of the seat for the crank bolt. After all this prep work was done we pulled the plugs and set up a dial indicator to measure runnout on the face and axially of the pulley. Then by turning the camshaft pulley via wrench with a long cheater bar (the long cheater bar being required so that I could turn the engine over smoothly and little bits at a time) we sat and tapped the pulley and turned and tapped until we got it fairly centered. I should say that the pulley is being held in place with the crank bolt, we resurfaced the the pulley where it sits so that it was again nice and true. After being satisfied with the fit on the dry run we went ahead and mixed up some JB Weld and filled up the keyway that had been torn out, both on the pulley and the crankshaft, put plenty around the shaft to ensure a good bond and that there would be minimal voids. Next we slide the pulley in place, put in the crank bolt and set up the dial indicators and went at it again. Turning, finding the low spot, tapping, repeat, over and over. We were able to the the face runnout down to 0.002 in. I am quite pleased with this. Unfortunately though, axially were only able to get within 0.012 in of centered (+ - 0.006 in.). It seems that the pulley is actually hitting the crankshaft and preventing it from being tapped farther and into alignment. But we decided to go ahead and leave it and see how much vibration and how bad it is once the engine is running. If we need to redo it, it may possible to remove the pulley (thinking of heating it up to soften the JB and then using a gear puller to get it off the crank?). So right now the JB is setting up and this week I will be able to get out to the house and drop the radiator back in and start her up and have a look. If it all looks good we will fill the holes in the pulley with JB weld to make sure it is all around the studs (we ground them slightly undersized to allow room for adjusting the pulley) and then put on the alternator, power steering pump, etc. and I should be good to go. I'm hoping we have it centered enough so that it will be fine and won't cause problems. I'll keep you guys updated as I continue to get it going and any opinions and ideas on the current situation are always welcome.

Lee

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 3:25 am

So what do you all think? Are my tolerances small enough to get away with? I'm hoping to get out tomorrow or wed. and try it but would like to hear what the experts think. Like I said before I won't be putting the AC back on so all I have to do is run my steering and alternator. Thanks.

Lee

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:25 am

Got out to the house today and everything looks pretty good. The final tolerances came out to +- 0.001 in on the face and +- 0.006 on the radius. All looked pretty good so I dropped the radiator back in and such, started her up and all looks pretty good. You can feel the pulley being not perfectly centered on the crank but it doesn't look like it's causing much vibration. Tomorrow I will let it run and get up to temp and just idle for a while and then recheck my tolerances to make sure nothing is drifting (though I doubt that it will). If all looks good I think I will put the alternator and the power steering pump back on and I'll be back ready to go driving. One of my friend's whom has done a fair bit of mechanic work and home fixes with his machine shop thinks I should be alright. Second opinons??

Lee

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 7:11 am

I wouldn't run high rpms much if I could help it, but these cars do have a damn tough bottom end.

Steve

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:41 pm

When you say high rpms, how high do you mean? I did my best to keep it below 4500 rpm berfore and the only time I hit it that is when I'd launching and taking off hard. Thanks.

Lee

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 7:45 pm

Whatever you can get away with keeping it down to. I run on red line a lot and wouldn't recommend it with the imbalanced pulley due to the higher vibrations, that's all. You don't plan on keeping the car forever, so the forged crank should be able to put up with it for a little while with 5 mains and large journal overlap.

Steve

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 1:58 am

Thanks Steve, is that your 90L wagon that you redline, if so, newish engine?. I got it all put back together, aside from the AC which I just left off. Less power that pulley has to transmit and one less thing to go wrong. The belt driving the alternator and power steering has less tension than spec but doesn't squeel (sp?), this way there is less non-constant loads on the bearings of the alt. and p.s. She runs smooth and I can't feel any vibrations unless I let my finger ride directly on the pulley. Driving on the road she feels fine and sounds fine, doesn't seem to have any problems powering full lights and stereo with the reduced tension in the belt. I feel as though it's going to work and last me at least another 50k. Thanks to all for the help. Man, it feel sooo good to have my baby back.

Lee

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 3:08 am

Lee, that's really awesome that you fixed it up! I think your tolerances are pretty close, and you're probably not much worse off than people with lightened aftermarket pulleys. I'm not really qualified to have an opinion, though.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 7:23 am

No, the engine's high miles. I red line it in the first 3 gears several times a day (well a little less since I don't commute to work anymore) and hold high rpms around entrance ramps. Just fixed the idle by cleaning the IAC with brake cleaner and now it idles so smooth you can put your hand on it and almost not tell it's running. Still have the original PS pump and alternator - the lights don't even dim at low idle. I'm having this alternator rebuilt when it finally goes.

Steve

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 4:21 pm

Vrg3 - Thanks, glad to hear you think that I'm fairly good shape. Are you serious that I'm not much worse off than the aftermarket pulley - awesome.

Wow Steve, that's amazes me that an engine with that many miles on it will still take those kinds of stresses. I know our EJ22 engines will take some lickings and keep ticking and are built right, are your experiences with the engine fairly standard? I've done a lot of looking over old posts but haven't seen a whole lot of reports about engines over the 200k mark other than they still go. My brother says he wouldn't take my engine over 3500 rpm now but from the more I hear about our engines I'm feeling pretty safe at under 4500 rpm. The only thing left that I want to do to my car "performance" wise is to redo my grounds, I'm sure the connections aren't the best and are slightly corroded.

Lee

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 5:47 pm

Well, yes, I'm serious, but I'm no mechanical engineer or anything.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 8:17 pm

The cars slower than it used to be and gets lazy sometimes with being reluctant to make power over 5K. Other times she runs to redline with a strong pull the whole time. Guess whatever mood she's in at the time. I once rana 16.3 1/4 in it and saw 133 on the speedometer. That was 100k ago - I know she wouldn't pull close to that now. Still feels strong, but just doesn't make the same power. All my sensors are original, too with almost no problems at all. Does use a lot of oil, though since my rear main and about everything else is leaking. I don't want to bother fixing it as I've got a turbo engine to put in at some point.

But I do talk very nice to her and like plants, I think machinery responds to that. I could get into Native American and Eastern religious ideas that may explain it, but most people don't buy it anyway.

Steve

worunner · Post by **worunner** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:19 am

hello all. i know... reviving a 4 year old post...

Anyway,
I was driving home from work yesterday when i threw my crankshaft pulley. no big deal right? I went, bought a new tensioner pulley, new crankshaft bolt and key.
took it off, low and behold, the key is F*CKED up. crankshaft appears fine, but i dont know what to do. Do i need to pull off the timing belt to change it?

Post by **Legacy777** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:38 pm

Yes, the timing belt needs to be removed, specifically the crank gear to put in a new key.

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HELP - Pulley problems