idler pulley question - NJFBOA - Home of New Jersey's Camaros and Firebirds

emolineaux · 02-19-2009, 06:26 PM

ok well i was dealing with this horrible bearing grinding sound in my 98 z. i replaced the power steering pump because when i would spay the front shaft the noise would stop. so i bought a gm tensioner idler p/s pulley. i just installed all the new parts today including a new p/s pump. i started the car and low and behold i have the grinding noise and its even worse now. i sprayed the ps pump shaft and the noise continued. i sprayed the idler and noise went away but came back. now i have the new tensioner and idler torqued to gm spec of 37 ft lbs. when i got the idler from barlow chevy yesterday the guy brought it up and the box was opened. it didnt seem used. what do you guys think? i took her for a drive after i got the install done and the noise was so bad to listen to almost makes me not want to drive my z. o and by the way that gm idler cost me 70 lol the aftermarked ones didnt match up right.

FBODS4EVER · 02-19-2009, 07:41 PM

id exchange it. it sounds like someone else returned it already. couldnt hurt to try another one.

emolineaux · 02-19-2009, 08:33 PM

thats what i was going to do. ill probably go after work with my paperwork and talk to the guy have one get ordered and ill bring mine back saturday and hopefully get my z taken care of and be done with this stupid ass problem

Pampered-Z · 02-20-2009, 08:32 AM

You could also check this, on the tensioner and idlers pullies GM kinda went cheap on the bearings and the grease dries up. but you can service them. If you take the pullies off retainer and outer seals can be removed with a small ( jewlers / eyeglass ) screwdriver. You can then clean and repack the bearings. I did this about every 75K miles on my GMC.

JL8Jeff · 02-20-2009, 04:50 PM

Did you put a new belt on? I was getting a lot of noise a couple of years ago and I removed the AC belt and it went away. I thought it was the AC tensioner but turned out to be the belt. I scuffed up the backside of the belt and put it back on(it was a Sunday and the parts places were closed) and it never made noise again. It could be your belt if you didn't swap it.

emolineaux · 02-20-2009, 05:39 PM

yea bought a new gm belt.

deadtrend1 · 02-21-2009, 01:27 PM

i recently replaced my a/c tensioner to make the sound go away.

camaros_4life34 · 02-21-2009, 02:56 PM

This may sound stupid but me n my cousin had this problem with his jeep. Then 2 months later had the same problem on a blazer that i had built for a guy. You can spray and spray and spray all you want to, you can replace all the pulleys you want to. but im thinkin its your crank seal on your timing cover. It goes bad and some how lets your harmonic balancer start to dig into your timing cover. I could be wrong but that was r problem on not one but 2 different vehicles. If thats the problem you should be able to c a mark on the timing cover where it rubs.