Geesh....I need some help

[Schmoe]

Let me tell you what's going on. I have this grinding sound coming from the passenger side, towards the rear. This is a '90 Cutlass, 3.3V6, side where everything else is bolted up and fan belt. Anyway, talked with a mechanic, claimed it was the power steering pump. Made sense since the car has 190K miles on it and sounded and felt like that was where the noise was. Get a new one and put it on (tell you what, that really SUCKED, hardest thing in the world to replace). Grinding sound still present. Oh Great. Go to Advanced Auto and have one of them listen to it. Well, they said it was the bearings in the tensioner pulley. OK. Sounds right, fells about right, replaced it last night, no difference. One thing I did discover is that when I pulled the tensioner up, it made a sound really close to the noise that I'm trying to solve. Played with it some and decided if I put some oil on the inside of the tensioner, it might help. So, I break out the slick 50 spray lubricant and WD-40 and a skinny straw and try to shoot some lube inside the tensioner itself. Noise still present, BUT no where near as bad. I let the car idle, in gear with AC on (seems to do it the worse at that setting) and I'm watching the fan belt. When it wobbles some, the noise starts up. Something like harmonic distortion. Then when it stops, the noise goes away. I took off the fan belt and cranked her up again, put it in gear and played with the idle speed, no noise.
So, by the process of elimination I know it's not the engine, not the power steering pump, not the tension pulley itself. It's not the water pump, I put a scope on it and couldn't hear anything going on and it was smooth. Did the same for the alternator, smooth as well.
Could it be the actual tensioner itself? I noticed that when I pulled the tensioner up past say a quarter inch, it's smooth, but from a rest position up a little, there is that noise.
I had glanced at the whole assembly and OMG. Seems everything is bolted to it.
Could it be the actual tensioner? Have any of you come across this problem? I've never had to replace a tensioner on any vehicle before. Could by fan belt stretched out some or get a shorter belt to pick up that tensioner a little higher? Does anyone know where I can get a schematic of that engine just to see what I'm getting into before I'm brave enough to change it out? Man, I'm at wits end here. Is there another way to lube that thing?

 

[D C Anderson]

Try replacing the belt. My son and I chase a strange noise coming from his car and did much the same thing you had done and found out it was the belt. The odd thing about it was a fairly new belt (6 months old). We put the old belt back on and the noise disappeared.

 

[Kestas]

Tensioners are typically non-serviceable sealed units. For insurance, many mechanics change the tensioner with every new belt.

I've also replaced an otherwise healthy belt after 12 years because of stretch, which reached the limit of the tensioner.

It seems that if you replace both belt and tensioner you should have your problem solved.

 

[TheLoneRanger]

Tensioner bearings are indeed sealed, and by design are small. They operate in a hot environment at high rpm, so they tend to fail on a regular basis. I've replaced many on several Fords I've owned over the years. They seem to last about 80-100K miles.

Since they're a regular maintence item, they are usually easy to access and change.....

 

[Schmoe]

The arm is got to be shot. That's about the only thing that makes sense. Does anyone know how difficult it is to replace one of these? It's in one of those positions where you can't see how it's bolted on. You'd have to feel your way around it. Looks like about 3 bolts, is that right? Anybody done this before???

 

[Schmoe]

Thanks. I do have a brand spanking new belt but didn't try it yesterday. I'm still #issed that I waisted 85 bucks on a power steering pump and about 4 hours of work.

Are we talking about the pulley itself or the tensioner? I did replace the pulley, but it was fine. No play, smooth bearings....even hooked it up to my drill and it was smooth as a baby's butt. One question and I can not find a picture of this on the web.....how does that thing come off? Are there just two or three bolts behind the power steering pump or do I have to remove all that stuff AGAIN? I found the part number...AC Delco 38027, but I'll be danged if I can't find a picture of it to see where and how it's bolted on. It's actually called belt idler pulley.

 

[Gary Allan]

Okay ..so you changed the actual bearing(ed) pulley ..but not the arm that makes it apply tension. Is that right? This might make sense. If the arm is shot and allows the pulley to track "off plane" ..this would cause the belt to make noise ..or so one could reason.