Greetings fellas, my name is Matt, I work at AUTOCouture Motoring in north NJ.

I know with all the RTR failure threads popping up about this forum seems to make mine look like bad timing, but indeed it has happened to a customer car of ours not too long ago. A friend had brought us his E55 over the course of the last year or so to have work done (in addition to several other cars from his family/friends), and most recently his Evosport pullies had grenaded (bearing came out of the center on one). They were installed by another shop (i am not sure who it was), so it was brought back to us to be repaired.

After waiting 6 months for no word on replacements, we ordered replacement OEM pullies for the time being just to get the car back on the road. The crank pulley had been damaged by the last belt flying off (also an Evosport part), so he elected to replace it while it was out. We ordered him a RTR 195 pulley, unbeknownst of all these issues popping up; we are majority a BMW/Porsche shop, I have a year or so in MB personally as an A-tech for a dealer out in Long Island (I was doing all the V6 and V8 timing chain idler gears at the time), so when I installed this pulley at the recommended factory settings, it boggled my mind to hear only 4 hours later that it came off, and the car had to be flatbedded back here (at a cost of $450 that we had to cover).

Upon arrival I took a look, and found the crank pulley resting in the lower tray, and the crank snout was gouged pretty bad. I spoke to a few members and a vendor on here while looking for replacement parts and I realized that I was not alone in this ordeal. We bought the pulley from Eurocharged, who refunded us without an issue, but we are still left at the moment with a possibly junk crank (which I believe its most likely not salvageable) and a customer who is not happy about being out of his car for 7 months now.

So that is where we sit at the moment, I will try to get pictures up in the morning, maybe someone can figure out better than I if its even able to be cleaned up and pinned perhaps or we will need a new crank....

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I don't like seeing these cars down.

 

Here is what myself and another member did to resolve similar issues. It's not for everyone but it is an idea


https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...key-fixed.html


Best Wishes

 

Sorry about your clients troubles.

Way to much Blown engines, and cars down for our likings these days!

ASP WELDED 180 here 6 years + running strong.

 

Welcome to the club. I'm in the middle of a compete rebuild due to the RTR pulley. My crank is out right now and I'm still waiting on word if it can be repaired or not.

 

Sorry about your customers misfortune Matt. Each situation is different as to whether the snout is hurt. Nizzle just re-installed his as his snout does not seem to be that bad. E55amgrockets snout was mutalated and I am sure he will post some pics.

My snout was ever so slightly scratched so it was cleaned up and two more pulleys installed and pinned, both had the same outcome, severe wobble. My snout was ovaled and I had to do a engine rebuild.

Post pics of the snout, mic it, and try to check the run out, you maybe in luck.

Crossing my fingers for you that it is salvagable brotha.

 

Where in North NJ are you located?

 

That blows. Sorry to hear that. What did rtr tell you? Where is rtr to step up and recall the pulleys? Aren't the owners sponsors here now? What is mbw going to do now? Glad EC stepped up and refunded the pulley like a real company should.

 

Another one This is just terrible this is happening to so many people out there.

 

we are located up in Fairlawn, the northern section of NJ

I never managed to get ahold of RTR directly, as we bought it from EuroCharged. They did the right thing at least by refunding us the full amount for the pulley, but Im still stuck with with a damaged crank for the most part.

The crank is gouged pretty severe...I dont know if it can be fixed. It has so much roughness and metal transfer to it that Im having problems trying to get a decent runout on it. I'll try to snap some good pictures of it tomorrow.

Motor is coming out regardless, hopefully sometime this week I can get it into the shop and get it all apart so we can see what we are really dealing with.


On a side note, does anyone have a spare crank lying around? lol

 

Cranks are fairly hard to come by so far it seems. Good luck getting ahold of RTR too. As I'm sure you already know this isn't going to be a cheap repair. I decided that with my motor out I was going to build it right but some have decided to just put new motors in instead. Either way it sucks and all because someone wanted to sell junk pulley's that weren't even tested properly. They will claim install error though like always.

 

 

Sorry to hear about this..

 

I am trying to get this guy to go all out on the motor once it comes out, maybe lessen the blow of labor charges since it will all be apart anyway, but that $4k+ hit for a crank does sap a lot of the fun out of it.

 

how come all of you guys have the same pulley that is messing up your cars?

 

Germany and the junkyards are gonna run dry on spare cranks and motors. This is a really bad thing for the entire platform since there's only so many made. A chevy 350 crank these are not. The supply of spare parts ia gonna run pretty dry soon I bet. How many totalled 55's are in junk yards?

 

man, you guys must have all the money........

 

Matt, I may have found a spare crank for you. I will let you know whether the owner is willing to let it go.

 

lol...

 

Matt,
This failure happened how long ago?
I read in your post 7 months, is that correct?

 

Re-read it. He said they had a problem with the evosport pulley and put a RTR on and it just fell off. Not 7 months ago.

 

It was installed i believe the last week of May, weekend before memorial day. It kinda bummed me as I took it personally (as I do with all high end builds), and the entire week out in CA on vacation it was always a thought in my mind.

Craig please let me know what goes on with the crank

 

Actually, I believe the 55K motor is the longest running motor AMG has produced. They've been making from 03-11 (with the G55). True though, by the day supplies are getting more and more limited

 

Send the car over to RS Worx, I'm sure they can resolve your issues.

 

Can anyone tell me why the pulleys are not fitted to the crank with a splined fitting - similar to how centre lock wheels fit onto their hubs?