Crank Pulley Failure?

Hi All,

 

2005 lgt wagon w/65,000 on the clock.

 

The accessory belts on my car were jumping off of the accesory pulleys. Turns out the crank pulley looks as though it has moved backwards about 1/4 to 1/2 inch closer to the engine. As a result the crank pully is not aligned with the ps or a/c (and tensioner) pulleys. Boom they jump off.

 

Anyone hear of this type of failure? I believe that the crank pulley is a 3 pc affair with 2 pulleys held together with a rubber damper ring of some sort. What do these cost? What else can I expect to be damaged?

 

Thanks for any info...

 

-Dan

thats really strange. is there evidence of a damaged pulley aside from the offset distance?

None -- the belts just kept jumping off -- I replaced the belts, the a/c tensioner and then (after thinking I had lost my mind) I looked from the side where the offset is obvious.

 

btw the pulley is stock.

Not common on cars with less than 100k or 10 years....

Is the crank pulling moving or is is the entire crank? The entire crank moving is what DSMs did when they "crankwalked", you could take a prybar and pop the pulley back in to alignment and know it was crankwalk.

 

Do you check your oil levels regularly?

I don't know if the entire crank is moving -- I would think not as the car is (was) driving just fine.

 

I check the oil regularly -- why? (I hate to ask)

 

-Dan

Thinking about this and a quick search on crankwalk leads me to think this is not the problem -- the offset is between 1/4 and 1/2 inch.

This is certainly not common.

 

It sounds like the outer pulley separated from the inner hub. I would not worry too much about why it happened (the part obviously failed), I would focus on replacing it ASAP. Fortunately it is not all that hard to do.

Sorry, I realized after posting what I did I should have just asked better pulley questions rather than worrying you... so even if I write this, don't freak out...

 

I asked if you checked your oil regularly because in general (not specifically Subaru) low oil levels can lead to poor lubrication on the thrust bearing, the thrust bearing keeps the crank in alignment and wear on it could allow your crank to move in and out...

 

In 2g DSMs they had a crank sensor that got chewed up by the crank, and that's why the car died... other cars can "live" for a very long time with thrust bearing problems until something like a rod bearing eventually spins...

 

Here's a fairly good article on it...

 

http://www.aa1car.com/library/2003/eb50331.htm

 

But give yourself some piece of mind and gently try a prybar to see if it's the pulley or the entire crank moving... I would HIGHLY doubt it's a thrust bearing problem on a car with so low miles...

Hi,

 

Got the pulley off and it has delaminated -- I will send pics when I can. Crank looks ok, keyway intact.

 

Looks like it has been delaminated for a while. I'm surprised that I still has PS and ac?

 

-Dan

Hi,

 

Got the pulley off and it has delaminated -- I will send pics when I can. Crank looks ok, keyway intact.

 

Looks like it has been delaminated for a while. I'm surprised that I still has PS and ac?

 

-Dan

 

Wow, what could have made that happen? It surely doesn't seem all that common...

The two piece crank pullys seperate when the rubber between them dries out and allows for play and then the torque of the crank shaft and the belts twists it apart. Just be glad it didn't completely seperate on you were going down the interstate at 3200RPMs. That's when the pully on my Jeep decided to come apart. Nothing like a 10LB high RPMs projectile bouncing around under your hood and your floor boards at highway speeds:lol:.

just happened to me.

seen this a few times before with svx guys

I hope this is covered under my extended warranty. A/C belt definately caused damage to the sensor on the compressor. My has walked backward into the crank case. Hope there's nothing damaged in there.

Same thing happened to me. Warranty would not cover the ac compressor. Reason being that the part that damaged the ac was an uncovered part.... $1700 dollars later the car got totaled 5days later

But if the crank pulley didn't fail then the belt wouldn't have come off the a/c pulley and damaged the a/c compressor.

I know but they were being rude about it. luckly the car was totaled. Now I have another 05 with 56k The first thing that i did was take the crank pulley off and replaced it with a lite weight one piece.

what did the $1700 cover?

This happened to RaGe's 05 LGT. The pulled failed and slid back into the timing belt cover.

 

Ate up the timing belt cover... and the connector on the A/C compressor clutch.

When the belts came off it took out the timing cover. both belt adjusters ac compressor. Cause of the problem was a two piece crank pulley. Warranty would not cover anything but the crank pulley. cannot replace just the ac clutch. If you can find another ac compressor assembly you can take the clutch off and the connector is part of it. There is not a part number listed ANYWHERE for a clutch.

Is the crank pulling moving or is is the entire crank? The entire crank moving is what DSMs did when they "crankwalked", you could take a prybar and pop the pulley back in to alignment and know it was crankwalk.

 

Do you check your oil levels regularly?

 

Just some Mitsubishi background:

 

Crankwalk was only on the 95-99 4g63 engines with the 7 bolt crank. All of the other years were fine. The majority of the crank walk was due to bad machining processces on the crank from Mitsubishi. You were really only suseptable to crank walk if you had a manual car and put a heavier pressure plate it. If the crank were to move lenn than 1/8", you would see spun bearings in your engine, so I agree with the rest, its definetly your pulley.

 

DSM stands for Diamond Star Motors, which only produced cars until 1994. Mitsubishi took ownership of the operations in 1995 when all of the car and engine styles changed. So really, DSM's did not have crank walk problems, Mitsubishi had the crank walk problem.

 

The 89-92 6 bolt and 93-94 7 bolt engines were very very strong. I had a 6 bolt street/race engine that made over 310 whp daily driven and it was very dependable.

 

Sorry, just don't like people giving a bad rep to all of the mitsu's.

I know but they were being rude about it. luckly the car was totaled. Now I have another 05 with 56k The first thing that i did was take the crank pulley off and replaced it with a lite weight one piece.

Same thing happened to mine. where did u get the lite weight one piece crank pulley?

I luckily caught it when just one belt came off so i only need to replace the timing cover and crank pulley. Still shouldn't have happened at 81k miles.

After further searching, i bought the perrin lcp aluminum one piece crank pulley for 100$