My car has a new noise! Wooo something to fix.
It’s a very light rhythmic grumble, can only hear it at idle - any revs at all drown it out. Clutch/gears make no difference and it sounded like it was coming from the belt side of the engine. It’s audible in the cockpit (just) and if you stick your ear to the OS/R wheel you can hear it, anywhere else and it’s just drowned out by exhaust/engine noise.
I took arch liner out to have a look at the pulleys to see if I could spot a wonky one, it really sounds like it’s coming from the damper unit on the shock absorber. It’s listed as a ‘spring’ on various parts diagrams but I think it might actually be a gas damper? In addition to that, it’s got residue on it - suggesting said gas/oil may be on its way out.
I actually cleaned this residue off a month or two ago when I replaced the missing nose bracket bolt - so I know for sure it’s fresh, and I can’t find any other source in the engine bay it might be coming from… so this is looking like a slam dunk?
A final observation might be totally normal for an idling pulley system, I never really took notice before - but the tensioner is gently bobbing up and down. I was expecting it to be able to keep the full system taut at idle RPM but perhaps not?
<LINK_TEXT text=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfQuduZ … zeyOnTrack”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfQuduZJffM&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=FonzeyOnTrack</LINK_TEXT>
Noise isn’t too audible here, actually isn’t too audible in the flesh either - but I can tell it’s slightly off tune.
I welcome any thoughts, it seems the damper unit is no longer available on its own - so looking at replacing the job lot. Seems I’ll need to jack the engine up to clear the subframe when removing the bolt too. Woo!
I’m thinking if this is a problem, it’s potentially caused by the fact my alternator wasn’t connected properly for god knows how long (at least as long as I’ve had the car) so the tensioner was likely working overtime to keep the belt in check. When I combine this to the recent discovery of a snapped bracket at the other end of the SC unit - I’m really doubting the quality of work that went into my cars documented SC replacement back in 2012, so will likely look at taking that off and redoing it properly in the near future too. :roll: