Serpentine Belt and Tensioner?

[yardman]

Parking up last night, I noticed a distinct but minor rattle.

Popped the bonnet up (whilst secretly hoping it's not the timing chain) and listened. Sounds likes its coming from the serp belt and/or tensioner.

Seems to be a pulsed rattle occurring at a set point during each rotation. After a few seconds of poking around, the noise settled down and disappeared. So, checked again this morning from cold and all seemed quiet.

I'll take the engine cover off and have a look over the weekend, any hints on how to diagnose if there is a problem in this area? How can I check for play, etc?

Cheers.

[b120ute]

its pretty common for the idler and tensioner pulley bearings to fail.

if you whip the belt off and have a wiggle of the pulleys it'll be pretty easy to tell if the bearings are shot, they'll be as sloppy as porridge

if theyre ok, pray its not your timing chain tensioners.. a bit more $$$ to fix that one

[libz05]

was it only happening on idle!
becoz i get a minor rattle but from 2k rPM - 3RPM
nothing loud but can get very annoying!
i was told by kido tune that it was the passenger timing tensioner
called garage 88
got qouted for $261.00 for timing tensioner
and then $280.00 for labour


total of $541 to get the issue sorted!

[wrxagz714]

I had belt and pulleys done recently - MY07 Legacy Wagon BSpec 6MT, 88kms. Subaru dealer quoted $600 so I took it to a Subaru mechanic who did the entire job for $390.

Much relief on the wallet

[b120ute]

i forgot to mention that you can replace just the pulley bearings rather than the pulleys themselves

i got mine from Tradewind on this forum for around $10ea

you do need to remove the pulleys and press out/in the bearings though, very easy to do (if you have access to a press)

[BillyCorgi]

Hi there,
I changed both the idler pulley and the tensioner pulley bearing last Saturday morning.
Used FAG 6203-2RSR bearings that cost me $4.40 + GST each. (Mates Rates)
Pressed the old units out and the new units in without much fuss.
Whole job took half-an-hour.
Belt was a Gates 6PK-1590 and still in good nick.

[yardman]

Cool, cheers for the replies.

Unsure what caused the noise, only occurred for a few seconds at most.

Have since removed the belt, inspected the pulleys - all seems good. General clean-up of the area and refit, nothing to report. All seems well.

Perhaps just some minor crap ingress, perhaps slow failure of pulley/s....