Beefe55

Hey Peeps,

So I am in a bit of a pickle. I noticed a week ago that my supercharger pulley bearing was a bit noisy, almost like a skateboard wheel going south, but it wasn't too bad once warmed up. Now today starting up in the cold california mornings (lol) I noticed it was creating a bit of a ruckus under the hood. So my question is.. should I replace the bearing and continue on with my plan for the car which is.. maintenance,cooling mods, exhaust(headers), THEN engine/blower mods or am I safe to slap a pulley on there before I continue with the rest of my plan. Is there anything I should worry about having an upgraded pulley without any supporting mods done first? Any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance

shardul

iTrader: (1)

Replace the bearing or use the funds towards a purchase of a 83mm SCP

VictoryRoadPerformance

Perfect time to upgrade the Pulley, Whatever size you decide to go with you will need a tune. With an 83mm youll be fine without supporting mods right now. but if you plan on going 76mm eventually its not going to hurt you to run it for a while before getting the cooling up to snuff.

depending on your budget you could do our stage 2 cooling kit right now, along side the 76 pulley and tune.

Dont forget to check which IC pump you have on the car currently. (you want 010)

As for the pulley and bearing, we offer the bearings for $57, or if youd like a pulley and tune shoot me a PM and ill send you a coupon code for the holiday discount.

you can see a review of our pulley here > As a note: he is currently not running any supporting mods with the pulley, but plans to in the near future. you would be in the same position

tw2

83mm and tune unless you have some very overdue maintenance.

Beefe55

Nothing seriously overdue.. Engine/Supercharger Oil Change + New Rotors/Pads on the horizon. The rotors are toast but i figured since I baby the car most of the time, I have some meat on the pads to use before I change them

Beefe55

Opted to just purchase the replacement bearing for now. Gonna spend the money to get her sturdy before I do any tuning, and I felt it would be a waste to tune for just pulley when I plan on upgrading the cooling shortly after. Thanks for the suggestions though guys. Very grateful for this community, as I am learning so much about the car. This forum is worth its weight in gold.. literally!

Beefe55

Funny how this happens right after I post about it hahah, well I’m wishing I had replaced it sooner now

tlambert

Buy a scattershield.

tw2

Ah it's not that bad lol. +1 on the scatter shield.

Beefe55

I was able to drive the car home after work at least.. not sure how the scatter shield would help me at this point though?? lol
What exactly does it do?

tlambert

Read here. I believe he has a link to what problems he had in the past.

https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...er-pulley.html

tw2

It doesn't help you at all with this problem. It is just a good idea for anyone with a clutched pulley especially aftermarket but also stock. If the pulley explodes it shields vital and expensive engine components from the debris and destruction.

Beefe55

ahh I see.. ok well I will add that to the wishlist. For now.. I just need to get this thing back on the road

Beefe55

Here's an update on the bearing replacement so far.. so at the moment I am still waiting on the bearing, but I decided to go ahead and take off the pulley and get it ready to drop in. I will add that I was struggling to get the bolt off the pulley, and after some determination and cursing I managed to get it off. Everything seemed to go wrong, so I ended up spending a lot of time running around for tools at various stores. I was using a 15/16 wrench since I didn't have a 24mm, and it was chewing up the corners on the the bolt a bit when wacking it some with my dead blow hammer. So I ended up picking up a 24mm husky wrench which ended up being a worse fit then my 15/16(Go Figure). Also bought some C-Clip pliers which happened to be too small. And on top of that I had bought some metal straps which ended up stripping and caused another unnecessary trip to the hard ware store. But in all, I have prevailed and I am very grateful. A lot and trial and error but with determination we can always find a way. I had tried doing all the work myself, but what saved me in the end is when I finally asked my buddy to give me an extra hand. Here's my 2 Cents to anyone who cares..

For removing the bolt- Make sure to use two metal straps, and if you dont want your clutch scratched then tape it prior. I scratched the **** outta mine but its not a big deal. a cover goes over it anyways. Tighten the front strap a tiny bit off set since the metal pieces they stop on arent on the same plane. It will slip a tiny bit, but once it catches both straps it should hold. I sprayed some PB Blaster penetrating fluid(I placed a towel underneath the pulley to catch dropping fluid), and then had used to two wrench method for extra leverage to blast the bolt right off. What I needed was for my friend to hold the end of the wrench (the one on the bolt) in place since there is not much bolt to grab and my tool kept slipping off when I was by myself. I had him place the end of a large adjustable wrench right in the hole of the wrench/bolt and keep pressure on it so it wouldnt slip off. Also if your wondering what the two wrench method is, it's when you place another closed end wrench on the open end side of the wrench thats already on the bolt, therefore doubling your leverage.

For removing the C-Clip- If your like me and don't have the correct size C-Clip/Snap Ring pliers, BUT you do have hooked picks, you can use these to take it off. I had my friend hook one side while I hooked the other, and we managed to get it out. Take caution and don't hold the pulley from top though, because the pick can slip, which it did and sliced my buddy. Hold from the bottom (should be common sense right?)

For removing the Bearing- IF your like me and don't have access to a press, then dont worry because I managed to get the bearing out fairly easily. I did buy a long bolt with washers for hammering out the pulley, but it turned out the washers were too small (told you everything was going wrong lol). BUT I did have washer from the pulley I just took off (Anybody please correct me if this was'nt a good idea). So i made a tool from the pulley washer and one of my half inch sockets. I placed the pulley upside down in between a few 2x6 I stacked up, and my buddy and I both held the boards in place with our feet. He held the pulley by putting part of his toe on the end, and I held the tool with vice grips with a hammer in my other hand. Using a decent sized hammer, i popped the bearing out in about dozen wacks. If it looks like its not budging, dont give up! it will go eventually.

SO there is my experience with the job so far. It was a pain in the *** at first, but only because I had no prior experience. Everything was basically improvised from info I had already learned here on the forums. I am still waiting on the bearing. Luckily I can still drive the car around lol.. I have a couple pics, probably could have took a few more

Beefe55

Beefe55

Wanted to come back and add a note.. during some portion of my R&R of the pulley bearing, I ended up stretching/bending one of the 3 "dog bone" tabs that secure the pulley to the clutch surface. This I had believed was irreversible and forced me to purchase an upgraded pulley early. I suggest being very careful during R&R to avoid this same matter.. I was ignorant as there was not much info on this. Possibly due to being common sense??

FunkTron

good word of warning. I think this may have been caused by a pulley being stuck on the shaft a bit and an excess of force (congrats on being strong) being used to remove the pulley.
Square / even tension on the pulley is key to getting it off straight.

MACEDON

I got an 84 (or 83mm) pulley from Shardul because I was debating the same thing, I was too lazy to change the pulley bearing out so I just went for the more boost option.

Haven't installed it still lmk if you want it.

Beefe55

I don't believe it happened during removal from car, but when removing bearing itself. While I was hammering out the bearing, I had it upside down on the 2x4s(evident in pics) and I believe it was during this time, as I bent the clutch outwards, not inwards, causing to make contact with the mating surface on SC. What I needed was access to a vice, as the pulley was sliding a bit and it might have caught the lip of the wood, bending the plate.

Thank you, but this R&R job is over a month old now. I ended up buying an 83mm pulley from eurocharged and slapping that on with the tune. It was the advice that given to me to begin with when I started this thread, but I opted for the cheaper option. Ended up losing $70 and time, but I learned a good lesson to share at least

paste

I don't mean to bring this back up, but I was recently changing the bearing on an S55 that I just got, and I did the same exact thing. Now I just had to spend $400 on a new pulley, plus the $45 for the bearing in the old pulley that is going in scrap. I feel like such a dumbass.

Peace.

Muhtish

I had to make that same decision on my E55. Found thread about bearing replacement with all of the part numbers. Took old bearing out, put the new one in. Grinding sound was gone! However, because bearing allowed dirt and dust got between the bearing and the pulley, causing part of the metal to wear out and that allowed for the wobble of the pulley. Ended up spending $$$ on a fully assembled pulley with bearing in it from fcpeuro.
Replaced the whole unit and ahhhhh, no more grind or wobble.