The problem: the alternator belt was rubbing on the idler pulley. This is a strange problem to have, because I never noticed it before, and we didn’t really change anything. Except that we replaced the water pump–so maybe the pulley on the new water pump wasn’t as close to the engine as it was on the old water pump? Then I started worrying that I hadn’t pressed the pulley far enough onto the pump–I recall it seeming like it was a millimeter farther on the old pump, and since this was the only thing we changed, I assumed this must be the problem.
So jonny pulled the pump off the engine again, and I took it down to the Tech Shop with me this time (last time I tediously managed to pull it off with a vice, but it was definitely the wrong way to do it, and now I have a tech shop membership anyway). I pressed the pulley farther on–too far in fact, it stopped being able to turn–then I used a puller to pull it off just enough so it would turn freely. So I am positive that I have the pulley as far on the pump as it will go. I gained MAYBE a millimeter out of it.
Then we had to laboriously scrape and clean off all the old gasket material (well secured with permatex!), buy new gaskets, and reinstall the pump.
After doing all that, the belts still rubbed. So then I took off the alternator and added a couple of washers to shim it farther out, and then finally the problem was solved. I don’t believe that I messed up the belt alignment through my actions; if anything, it looks like the alternator belts line up better with the added shims (though it is extremely difficult to tell by eyeballing it).
Leave a Reply