I have a 1991 ecodiesel that I am currently putting a ton of miles on and loving it.
I have this loud annoying clattering sound at certain rpms, mostly at idle. I thought it was coming from the waterpump or PS pump area. I took off belts and tried to isolate it, and I am 90% sure the noise is coming from the idler pulley that is coaxial with the waterpump drive pulley. It is a bit loose, and seems like it has a bad bearing. Has anyone repaired these before? Seems like i should be able to replace the bearing in there, but not sure. I also have read people just tach weld the two pulleys together, but I am not to sure I want to do that. Would prefer to get a new bearing in there.
Here is a pic of the setup i found on the web, ignore the 1 and 2. The idler pulley in question is in the top right hand corner, behind the water pump drive pulley.
Usually I can figure out this stuff from searching around the net, but this one has me a bit baffled. Is this a rare setup, I.E. diesel with AC only? Thanks in advance for any clues. Forgive me, I am pretty new to VW's.
its not uncommon... its a "slipper" pully.. when vw went to its silly design.. ohhh crap broke ps belt... but ac still on... drive till cooked..
fail... its not even a bearing.. its like clutch disk stuff...
i myself look for the solid kind..
they exist.. they went back to a 2 pully ps set up on late b3... making the wp 1 piece again.. like 92 16v.. and 87-88 they started that design...
mk3 serp set up no longer used... back to 3 pully ps... like i said.. odd they went to 2 from 3 back to 3...
^^^ Agree ^^^
You can still get the slipper version retail, but they are inferior to the solid version. I'd post a WTB for a solid.
Interesting...and a bit strange...is the solid pulley a similar shape, I.E. same pulley diameters as the two-peice? Is there any reason I could not tack weld the two togeather and make it a solid pulley?
thinking about it further, I could only weld the two together if I was to do away with my power steering belt. I was actually considering trying to run without PS because the pump is a bit noisy, and I don't drive the car in town much. Might gain another .001mpg that way
DO IT!
Power steering is totally unnecessary on the mk2 cars. They're so light you won't really notice a difference, unless you're running really fat tires.
Now, if you were to delete the p/s from your pickup, it would be absolutely atrocious to drive.
DO IT!
Power steering is totally unnecessary on the mk2 cars. They're so light you won't really notice a difference, unless you're running really fat tires.
Now, if you were to delete the p/s from your pickup, it would be absolutely atrocious to drive.
if I tried to drive the truck with no ps I would drive straight off the first bend!
I think I will give that a go, I will leave the ps pump in place in case I want to go back. I like the idea of having one less thing to go wrong as well. Have a 2500 mile road trip coming up in june, and don't want to have to stop to make repairs on the old girl.
I think the only trick will be making sure I get the pulleys straight to each other so there isn't a wobble. Is there any chance that having the larger pulley driving the water pump will have it underdriven, and turn to slow?
Perhaps I am overthinking it.
loop your lines together to keep some fluid in the rack for lube purposes. I drove one like this over a year and then passed off the loop to my buddy when I swapped in a full manual rack. it feels great both ways. frees up a lot of junk in your bay to.
I think I have the ond you need.
I had one of those things in Jezebel. What a PITA.
I just swapped out all the pulleys a month or two ago with a set off a car that didn't use that stupid rattly thing. A side bonus is I can change my belts WAY more easily now than I could before. The setup I am using now has the PS belt run completely independently of the water pump (the water pump has a single pulley). Much easier to deal with.
