Series I Supercharger... making noise?

What symptoms indicate you need a new one?

Yes it is important if it just rattle it is a coupler if it leaks it is bearings
and it is a lot cheaper than a blower.EAZY WORK in one day even unexperimented.

You might want to check out these guys on Ebay. Sounds cheap and can't be too involved to replacing yourself.

http://stores.ebay.com/ABCsupercharger

Good Luck!

Walt

Well it does sound more like a rattle. Most people tell me it is the bearings after I have to explain to them what a supercharger is. I reefuse to go back to my last mechanic because he replaced everything under my hood even the belt tensioner. the only things not new are the super charger and the water pump.

SYMPTOMS: car idles between 500 and 1000 sometiimes shuts off while turning at lowspeds. Rattles from the supercharger (almost constant does not go faster or slower when I rev the engine) and when I shut it off there is a "clank" like noise. and under heavy acceleration black smoke. My new mechanic say's I need a supercharger and all my oil seals and a PVC valve. but it is up to me to find a supercharger. (sorry bout the bad punctuation)

I have a spare SC with TB available. It will need a coupler which you can purchase for $30 from ZZP, Intense, etc... It is very easy to swap out with the SC off the engine and might consider doing it for you. SC has about 130k mi on it and the rotor coating is in good shape. I'll take 125.00 + shipping as is and will have photos up today.

One more time on the supercharger rattling noise. I read the other thread and am not quite sure it that's it. The symptom is, at idle, in drive there is a loud rattling/grinding noise coming from the belt area of the engine. It gets a lot worse when the A/C is on, or the steering wheel is turned. I bought a mechanic's stethoscope (lots of fun) and everything is quiet except the SC which sounds like it has rocks in it, and the lower belt tensioner which is bouncing around enough that I can't get the scope on it.

Does this sound like the coupler? It's a '95 series 1, 125k mi.

Thanks

You could have muliple issues. It does sound like the coupler, the rocks rattling sound. I'd take the belt(s) off and check the condition of all of the pulleys.

i had the same problem as you and thought the same thing took it to the shop and turned out the alternator was bad.

Take the S/C belt off and then see how the noise is.

It's very common for the idler pullies to have bad bearings.

I don't think the problem is with the S/C any more. With the engine in drive and the noise really loud I can loosen or tighten the lower tensioner and the sound changes a lot. Loosening the belt attached to the S/C doesn't remove the sound completely.

Thanks for your help; I'm going to replace the lower tensioner and tell you what happens. In a couple of days.

You probably don't need a whole tensioner - most likely just the pulley bearing is shot. You can get a new pulley for 1/4 the price of the whole tensioner.

What Derek said. Try just the new pulley. You'd have to wait for a tensioner assy to be ordered in anyway, most likely.

Well, I replaced the lower tensioner with one from a junkyard and that didn't change it at all. Then took the pulley off the old tensioner and put it on, still no change. All the pulleys feel smooth. The S/C has about 4mm total play to it and it sounds noisy. Can't hurt to order couplers at this point.

with the belt off, wiggle side to side on all of the pullies. Sounds like one of them is going... if one is angled it will pull the belt out of line elsewhere...

OK, I figured it out but haven't fixed it yet. The problem is the harmonic balancer. Someone showed me that with the engine off, you can turn the alternator pulley or supercharger pulley, and the outer pulley of the balancer moves but the nut does not, indicating that the rubber piece holding the two parts together has broken.

I'll replace the coupler too just because it is making some noise and is cheap.

I'll let you know when it's done.

ah yes. The balancers also tend to be a common issue. That'll do it. Good luck!

You should put a cam in it while you have the balancer off!!

Is there some trick to pulling the balancer off? I've beat on the wrench pretty hard and it won't budge. Is there any point in using pb blaster or anything?

do you have a balancer puller? There's a tool for every job.

I have stripped out a few bolts removing the balancer and had to tap bigger threads into the balancer to get the damn thing off.

The auto parts store balancers won't come with bolts the right thread for our balancers. You'll need to take your bolts down to the hardware store and get longer metric bolts the right thread.

I got this done. It was really pretty easy. I drilled holes in the pulley to get the bolts to fit. Thanks for all the help.

hey guys, haven't been on in a couple months.... i just got my 95 riv back after having a new (used) engine put in. It runs good but i think the sc coupling may be bad. At idle, it intermittently makes a noise like there are rocks or something in the superchager. The idle rpm doesn't change and it doesn't run rough, it just sounds really bad. Occasionally when driving it will surge a little bit, i think what is happening is it is losing boost??? I don't know. Does this sound like a sc coupling to you guys? Do you think I should be driving it or should a park it again?

ya a bad coupler will sound like rock ratteling around in there.
does it do it less or not at all after the car is warmed?

Could certainly be a bad coupling, for some reason I think the M62 has the same coupling as the M90, so I think you can use the replacement couplings they sell at Intense/ZZP. Also check closely for a bad idler pulley. I like to listen with a piece of garden hose like a stethescope so I can find the noisy spot specifically.

A bad coupling would not cause surging unless it is completely shot.

Give it a good listen first, make sure it's the S/C not an idler, then go for the coupling, and take a look at the bearings while you are in there.

no it doesn't quiet down any after it warms up. I thought the surging was wierd, so I took the belt off and spun the sc over to see if the coupler was coupling at all. It is, but there's probably 1/2" of play before engagement.

i'm going out right now to fashion up a stethoscope and check my idler and tensioner...

Noise is from bad coupler, surging is probably from bad ignition wires.

AA wrote:

Noise is from bad coupler, surging is probably from bad ignition wires.

X2 for coupler, but surging could be other things too. check vac lines, and replace the air filter and wires if they are old, then move on to wires if filter,plugs and lines are good. i like to start with the cheapest and go from there