noisy belts and pulleys on an 8v or 16v - try checking this

[davidwort 0]

My 8v has been running really sweetly after I sussed the previous owner(s) had had the cambelt changed and the intermediate shaft knocked on a tooth which drives the dizzy

 

a new aux belt and PAS belt had made it quieter too, chattery tappets are no biggy I can ingore that :)

 

but over the last couple of weeks it'd been getting noisier at idle, fearing that the alternator bearings were on the way out I stripped it all to bits to check everything and replaced the cambelt at the weekend as the old one was oily and I'd no proof of when exactly it was done.

 

looking down at the pulleys the PAS pulley was suspicious, the PAS pump pulley itself ran perfectly true (no play in shaft or bent pulley) but with a steel rule from the crank pulley to the PAS pulley it was clear that the two weren't parallel.

 

No amount of attempts to adjust the pump made any difference, every time I tightened all the fixings back up it pulled out of true.

 

It seems over the years that the brackets and fixings can become very slightly distorted, the 16v has a similar setup, and this creates a belt running out of true and lots of chatter and squeaks even on newish belts.

 

Good news is, that by a bit of thought and careful filing of the bracketry you can bring the pump body back in line and the pulleys back parallel.

 

All runs very quiet now, very worthwhile checking they are true with a straight edge, I bet most suffer from this alignment issue to some degree given the age and mileage of the cars now.

[volksworld13 0]

you sir are a legend

i too had this problem, my 8v still squeeks rubs on idle, i did replace the alternator and it did help, but im glad you sussed it out.

good tip!!

[scottydogwoof 10]

Glad i'm not the only one. my pas is visually out without a straight edge. I think its whats causing a subtle whine on the engine. Do you file it down to shim it up tho Mr Wort? Or CAN you take it apart and shim it back in ?

[davidwort 0]

shouldv'e taken some pics, there a couple of things you can do,

firstly the bracket that bolts to the front of the underside of the block (two drillings up along the front edge of the sump) can be filed out with a round 5-8mm file to give a bit of adjustment of the angle of the bracket.

then on the 8v there is a bolt just above the pump body that can be shimmed out a little with a washer no more than about 1mm thick.

Again, on the 8v there is a flat mating surfacebetween the bracket described above and the 'cage' that the pump is bolted into, this can be filed down a little.

 

By doing the above you can change the angle of the pulley/pump shaft to the crank pulleys, you need to get underneath to see the angles and how/where things need to shift slightly, with the bits off the car it's really difficult to picture the angle of everything!

Edited March 15, 2011 by davidwort

[scottydogwoof 10]

Yeah looks like my solution is the shim option its not on any funny angle, the pully is just not pertruding enough to line up. Ta Dave

[Supercharged 2]

Have you tried the ATF flush trick on the tappets mate??

 

I sorted a friends MK3 1.8 8V which probably hadn't had an oil change in 3-4 years and was noisey as hell, did a change with 4 Ltrs of cheap tesco oil they had and 1/2 Ltr of ATF as a flush, ran up to temp on the drive and went for a thrash, then came back and did an oil and filter change with Synta - almost silent now, loads better especially at startup!

[davidwort 0]

cheers, may well try the ATF, just a bit loathed to do anything that might casue an oil leak, amazingly the 8v has no engine oil leaks at present, must be the first VW I've had that's managed that!

[Supercharged 2]

cheers, may well try the ATF, just a bit loathed to do anything that might casue an oil leak, amazingly the 8v has no engine oil leaks at present, must be the first VW I've had that's managed that!

 

Eh - I've never had a VW that's leaked oil badly!

[davidwort 0]

early 8v and nearly all 16v cam cover gaskets, you never see a completely dry one, nothing bad, just annoying weeps, enough to get things dirty, plus I'm not massively keep on dislodging years of residue build up inside the block and head, not based on any experience, purely scaremongering :)

[boost monkey 0]

I'm confused how loud tappets are thought of as no biggy but a whining belt (which they will all do at resonant frequencies, even the cambelt) is suddenly something to take notice at.

[davidwort 0]

I'm not sure I understood that at all :lol: