Thread: Is this a pulley problem.

A pulley with a stuffed bearing will make a loud whirring noise. The best way to tell is to take off the serpentine belt and spin the pulleys by hand. Any stuffed bearing will feel and sound rough even by hand. A misaligned pulley on the other hand will make a chirpy noise that can be temporarily alleviated by dribbling water over the belt with the engine running.

Originally Posted by bee utey

A pulley with a stuffed bearing will make a loud whirring noise. The best way to tell is to take off the serpentine belt and spin the pulleys by hand. Any stuffed bearing will feel and sound rough even by hand. A misaligned pulley on the other hand will make a chirpy noise that can be temporarily alleviated by dribbling water over the belt with the engine running.

Thanks for that, I just quickly pulled the belt of the pulley and gave it a spin and I can hear the bearings clicking, not sure if that is the best way to describe it but definitely makes a noise, I tried the other pulley and it is silent and does not spin as freely.

Now I am annoyed I didn't order the part, I could have had it fixed over the weekend and saved some money, oh well at least I can save them some fault finding time on Monday.

Thanks for your help.
Pat.

Ok couldn't not do it, I have cancelled the garage and ordered the pulley, hopefully next week I will have gotten rid of the noise or the search continues..

Remove the serpentine belt and then start the engine, if the sound has gone, it will at least confirm that its related to the front end as you suspect.

pulleys, alternator etc

Regards
Daz

I will give that a go thanks.

Hi Pat,
While you are checking pulleys, make sure the crankshaft pulley is sound. I had one deteriorate on my 2.4 Transit which caused strange noises which I felt sure were coming from the top of the engine. This problem was also not diagnosed by my local Ford dealer. I am making the assumption that the 2.4 Defender engine crankshaft pulley is similar to the Transit. My 2.2 Defender pulley is of similar design to the Transit although not identical.

What I found in my case was that the rubber bonding between the outer section and inner section of the pulley was failing causing the two parts to contact each other. In this case it produced an intermittent knocking noise which was more noticeable at lower revs and improved at higher revs . It would come and go randomly and drove me mad! This I also noticed made the belt run out of line as the tension on the belt would pull the outer section of the pulley inwards.

While this might not be the cause of your noise, it would be worth checking the pulley just in case as it is not immediately apparent (to me) that the pulley is a bonded unit. The pulley section where the belt runs should only show slight movement when a lever is applied. If it moves a fair amount then this could be failing. If it lets go it will cause major damage including probable damage to the radiator.

When I replaced the pulley (not cheap), the difference in noise level was immediate and solved my problem. The Transit pulley lasted probably 120,000 Km before deciding it was taking its bat and ball and going home in a huff. The pulley was totally shot although this was not visually apparent.

If the 2.4 pulley is not a bonded pulley, ignore everything I have said!

I also have a noise I think is a pulley. Going to have it looked at soon with the service.

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I picked up the new pulley today from LR, figure it is a 30 min job tomorrow and hopefully the noise is gone and any pending disaster avoided. If the noise is still there then I will have to continue the search, but feeling how the new pulley turns and feels tight I think the old one needs to go anyway so it won't be a waste.

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