Brock Samson Posted August 18, 2017 Share Posted August 18, 2017 I submit to you my tale of 2017 diagnostics woe. Hopefully there's some lessons for you here: Almost two months ago, after being gone for a while the wife and I went out for dinner at a nice restaurant. When the valet brought the car around, there was a slight new sound coming from the engine bay. A little whiny high pitched whirr. As soon as we pulled out on to the road, it turned into more of a scream. Having been gone a while, I freaked out and asked the Mrs if she had been checking the oil at fill ups...the silence was deafening. We happened to be right next to an parts store, so I checked the dipstick (dry as a bone), ran into the store 2 minutes before the closed and grabbed a couple qts of the slippery stuff. That seemed to help, and in a funk I drove home figuring the extremely low oil had done some damage to the internals, and maybe I was hearing the results of that. The whine was definitely engine rev dependent. The next day, in the beginning of a diagnostic process that now boggles my mind, I grabbed the ghetto stethoscope, started her up and began looking around. Main culprits I was looking for: -Timing Belt/idlers/water pump (all recently replaced -Power Steering pump (replaced at the same time as above) -Alternator bearing -Air conditioner bits (remember this one) -Harmonic balancer (somewhat recently replaced after grenading on I-5) -Starter motor solenoid or constant engagement I pulled the timing belt cover off (never realized how easy it is to pull the drivers side off). Timing belt looked just fine. I had heard that the Gates kit I bought recently switched to Chinesium rollers and quality was suspect, but it just didn't seem like that was the source of this noise. P/S pump sounded just like its supposed to Alternator was transmitting a LOT of the whiny nasty noise Air conditioner seemed fine- clutch engaging/disengaging, but I was suspect as a while back that clutch had made a bunch of noise after the stealership detailed the engine bay in exchange for their shenanigans of an unrelated story. The whine was constant whether the clutch was engaged or disengaged and the AC was blowing icy cold so I figured that wasn't a problem. Starter wasn't making any noise at all. The whiny shit was not coming from the back of the engine bay, so I ruled that out. So it really seemed like the alternator was the culprit. I've replaced them on almost every car I've ever owned, so I know they go bad. Relatively inexpensive, I went and picked up a trusty reman to swap out. (a week or so has elapsed) No dice. Readjusted both belts to check for tension problems. Still making that awful noise, and sometimes it was worse. In a misguided diagnostics attempt, I pulled both belts off and started her up just to make sure the problem was somewhere up there. Indeed the noise was gone with both belts off, then put just the P/S alternator belt on, still no noise. So it MUST be the AC! More days and weeks pass as this really seems like a minor issue, car works but just makes a nasty noise. OK, the next most likely culprit seemed to be the AC clutch. I sprayed some brake cleaner into it and the noise really seemed to get a lot better. AHA! I thought, this must be it! Luckily they sell just the clutch assembly for a mere $80 on Amazon. I figured an hour of battling with 2 snap rings and my problems would be over. It really did seem to make the noise go away after that swap. "Beauty" I exclaimed, with a couple road trips and a heat wave on the way, I was confident we'd be basking in reliable, silent air conditioning in the trusty steed that is the 2005 Subaru "Legendary Reliability" Legacy GT. Oh how wrong I was. How horribly, annoyingly wrong. A few days later.... Start up the car to take mini-me to daycare, and the noise is back. "Back" isn't giving it justice. Its screaming now. I'm late, I'm impatient, I'm stupid. Noise suddenly stops and "**** it, I've gotta get to work". The AC pretty suddenly stops working, I figure there must have been a leak, compressor tripped, something like that. I'll deal with it tonight. Tonight became tomorrow became the weekend became who knows when. I'm pretty defeated at this point and not looking forward to a full compressor swap (which is what I'm expecting). I DO look in the engine bay, nothing *seems* to be self destructing or doing any damage, we'll just deal with the 95º heat. Won't be that bad right? (footnote: at one point while driving with the family to the grocery store, a really horrid smell came through the cabin. Didn't think too much of it, figured it was another car. Should NOT have ignored this) Then a camping trip happens. Miss the ferry, have to drive. Its hot, its loud with the windows open. While in the woods it rains for the first time in 60 days...and it really, actually rains. The drive home was even worse, all the wet tents and clothes fogged up windows so we had to turn the damn heat on to defog, more people in the car...gah, it was really miserable. I grab my buddy's refrigerant loop gauges, a can of R134 with some dye. Maybe its just a leak, and all the freon is gone. I read that our AC systems have a very very small amount of charge and any leak can cause the system to go wonky. Following instructions carefully (as you do when working on a refrigerant loop), I started up the car to warm up, turned on the AC full blast even though its not working. I collect supplies and tools, open up the hood and instantly notice the AC belt isn't really spinning. Its...crawling. In fits and spurts. WTF :spin: Looking one step deeper, the belt has fallen off of the idler pulley. in fact the grooves are completely gone from the idler, and bare metal is showing. Alarm bells are ringing in my head, understanding that I had not really ever examined that one piece of the system, despite having unbolted it once or twice in this saga. I kill the engine, remove the tensioner bracket and find that stupid little $5 or less bearing had completely and utterly seized. The squealing whine from earlier was its death cry. The smell from before was the belt just rubbing over the seized pulley. The horrid noise and subsequent loss of AC was the belt falling off the destroyed pulley. New Gates pulley and belt on the way, should be here on Sunday. So almost $400 of throwing parts at this problem, had I just performed a more thorough diagnostic process my summer would have been much more relaxed and not nearly so sweaty. TL;DR: When tracking down bad bearings making noise, make sure to check ALL the possible bearings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmP6889928 Posted August 18, 2017 Share Posted August 18, 2017 Well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttnio Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 Now we know you had a great summer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Capacity Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 Yea, that's been a problem for a lots of us, replaced mine a few years back. 305,600miles 5/2012 ej257 short block, 8/2011 installed VF52 turbo, @20.8psi, 280whp, 300ftlbs. (SOLD). CHECK your oil, these cars use it. Engine Build - Click Here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amm203 Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 My sister's 02 WRX had an issue similar to this. Those model & year idle pulleys are made of plastic (not sure if ours are) and it literally exploded. This resulted in the belt breaking and putting a nasty gash in the timing cover. Luckily nothing was severely damaged in the process and I made sure she replaced it with a metal pulley. Glad you got it figured out before something like that happened! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brock Samson Posted August 22, 2017 Author Share Posted August 22, 2017 My sister's 02 WRX had an issue similar to this. Those model & year idle pulleys are made of plastic (not sure if ours are) and it literally exploded. This resulted in the belt breaking and putting a nasty gash in the timing cover. Luckily nothing was severely damaged in the process and I made sure she replaced it with a metal pulley. Glad you got it figured out before something like that happened! I got the Gates part, metal pulley and made in Canada. I didn't check the number on the bearing to see where its from, I presume China though. AC works beautifully now, clearly that should have been a metal pulley to begin with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JazzAvi8r Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 my car is making a similar whine. I figured it was just the belt's needing adjusted. I will be sure to check this pulley as soon as I get home. thanks for the wisdom!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black94Snake Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 This thread makes my head hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rougeben83 Posted August 24, 2017 Share Posted August 24, 2017 Yeah, I would advise anyone replacing the stock pulley to get a metal one as well - I replaced mine with a plastic Delco one and it subsequently failed within 2 weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Donated Too sigmafour Posted August 24, 2017 I Donated Too Share Posted August 24, 2017 I deleted it completely and just used the stretch belt they use on the later models... Yes the one Subaru sell for $80 but is just $16 on Amazon - and I have the handy install/removal tool as well so you don't have to cut it off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JazzAvi8r Posted August 25, 2017 Share Posted August 25, 2017 deleted it completely? can you provide a link or something that shows what parts you used to do that? also, a link to the gates pulley you're referring to as well. I'm about to put my engine back together and would like to do this before it becomes an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amm203 Posted August 25, 2017 Share Posted August 25, 2017 http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=366348&cc=1440457&jsn=344 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Donated Too sigmafour Posted August 25, 2017 I Donated Too Share Posted August 25, 2017 You take off the entire assembly - that is the pully and the bracket that's attached with two bolts to the front of the block. You obtain a Gates K040317SF belt which was $16 but is currently $19 on Amazon - I also picked up this great tool... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004WIWFIG which I have used on several cars as I also maintain a 2012 WRX and other Subarus - I have used this to remove their belts and reinstall rather than cutting them off. The belt - K040317SF fits the 2005 models and others that use the same tensioner - you just need this belt... basically what Subaru did for the later models anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brock Samson Posted August 31, 2017 Author Share Posted August 31, 2017 Here's the Gates pulley I used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C2WI7O Although it sounds like the delete option may be the way to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xt2005bonbon Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 That self tensioning belt option is actually pretty cool. But the part I don't like is that once it is installed, they say you can't remove it and reinstall it. You have to put a new one. Now, granted we should not have to remove that belt very often. But still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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