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Some of you have probably been following my threads on installing the VelocityAP exhaust and/or EuroAMP cooling upgrade kit. This thread is going to cover supercharger pulley upgrade specific work. This will probably be the shortest of the threads as both lower and upper pulley installs seem pretty well documented, and I'm only covering the pulley parts. The fact that the whole front end of my car is apart, and the supercharger is currently sitting on my workbench, will make things a good bit easier than were I doing this as a stand alone project.
In addition to the pulleys, I'm doing the tensioner update. I had the whole tensioner/idler assembly out of the car already, so it was just a matter of removing the older and bolting on the new.
If you are taking the whole assembly off, three of the four bolts are visible from about. The fourth, you can't see. I assume you could get a socket on it from above, blind, but since I had all the splash guards off and the car on a lift, I came at it from below.
Not much to document on pulling the lower pulley.
Of note. To anyone doing this for the first time, go buy an impact T50 socket. The thread locker on the bolts is serious stuff. I put a good twist in my T50 socket. I don't remember where I got the set, but at worst it was Harbor Freight.
I have an automatic and with everything apart and all the belts off, the engine would turn over, even on the re-install, trying to torque the bolts down to 48ft-lbs. To lock the crank, I took one of my deep impact sockets and put it on my 1/2" socket wrench. It was just the correct depth to brace the handle of the wrench against the big aluminum cross beam. I could generally get to four of the six bolts and then would have to rotate the crank about 90 degrees to get to the two remaining. To remove the bolts I came from below with a breaker bar. Once they were out a little bit and all I was fighting was the thread locker, I switched over to my ratcheting tensioner pulley tool. It was the same length and the breaker bar, but flat so it was a little less problem feeding it from below. More importantly, it was ratcheting, so much faster to get bolts out. Once the bolts were out, I cleaned out the old threadlocker with a pick and wire brush then ran the bolts in and out of the crank hub until I could smoothly and easily thread them all the way in and out with two fingers.
One thing I would note: were I doing this with the accessory drive belt still in place, I would release its tensioner and remove the belt from the water pump pulley. No need to go too far, but releasing the tension on the accessory belt would mean less possibility of having problems with the accessory drive pulley once you've pulled all six bolts.
Putting the new one on was straight forward. Finger tighten all six bolts, then with a wrench till they seat. Because my torque wrench is a bit more chunky that my breaker bar, it worked better to do the final torquing from above. Probably doesn't matter a whole lot here, but habit is to do three in a triangle, then the other three in a triangle, both for tightening and torquing.
I've spent the last few days pulling stuff off the car, it was nice to start putting things back on.
Another note for the first timers -- the ribs on the pulley are actually pretty fragile and its really good to not damage them. I manager to nick one, probably with one of the splines on the torx bit, when reposition. Nothing major -- just enough you could see the shiny and the burr would just catch a fingernail. It likely would put increased wear on the belt though, so I took care of it with bit of 1500 grit sandpaper. It wasn't even enough sanding to go through the coating around it, but its nice and smooth now. Try not to do what I did.
. I adjusted one of coils to fit around the protruding part of the hub, between the puller and the pulley face. With the puller center bolt backed off, I could heat the hub, then remove the the heater coil, thread the bolt down, and hit it with the impact. Too two rounds to get it off. For those worried about the heat, after the second round, when the pulley came off, the shaft was probably about 120F as I could grasp it and turn it with an ungloved hand, but I wouldn't have wanted to hold it long term.
Last night, I solved another little problem, related to the symposer delete. I needed to cap the vacuum line coming off the control solenoid, and I needed a solution for covering the trumpet inlet in the firewall. 3d printer to the rescue. I made a little cap out of flexible filament for the vacuum line. I modeled in a groove for a zip tie while I was at it.
Its a good tight fit, even without the zip tie. The cap for the trumpet inlet is currently printing.
What tool did you use to press the new supercharger pulley back on ?
Haven't gotten there yet. However, I ordered the supercharger upper pulley installation tool from VelocityAP, when I ordered everything. The plan is to put the hub on it, then heat the hub with the inductive heater and fit it on.
I've spent most of the morning tracking down the miscellaneous stuff I need to order to put the car back together.
Took about 10 minutes to put the pulley on, and a fair amount of that was adjusting the coil on the induction heater for a good fit around the hub.
Took about 30-40 seconds with the induction heater. Thermometer reading, the last time I checked, was over 600F. I know the target is 800F, but I was close enough.
Slid right on. Gentle tap with the rubber mallet to make sure it was fully seated (don't tap hard at all, or with anything metal -- your bearing will thank you).
It was about 60F in the garage, so things cooled pretty quick, without any extra help.
It may not look like it in the above picture, but the hub is pretty much even with the shaft end. Pulley installed.
Checking the alignment of the pulley, against the original, it's spot on.
Doing the pulley removal, with the supercharger in the car, would be less than pleasant. The pulley install? Definitely doable in car. Also worth noting -- if you are using an induction heater and screw up the positioning, you should be able to reheat and reposition. I didn't have to, but had I needed to, I would have removed the install tool, put the coil back around it and heated until it moved easily when gently pushed from the rear. Then repeat install.
Also installed the cap for the symposer trumpet. Its a horrible quality print, but since its really just a dust/bug cap and will be buried back on the firewall, never to be seen again, I didn't bother to fix it.
Other activities have kept me busy the last few days, but yesterday I started tackling the supercharger. The oil drain plug is in an unfortunately place.
I expect the inside of the back plate is not flat, so when you turn it on its end to drain the oil, you won't get all of it. Lots of folks only seem to drain 50-70ml out. I started there, then went at it with a syringe and a piece of 2mm id PTFE tubing -- I could bend it 90 deg so that I could get it down to the lowest points on either side. I manage to get 143ml out. I figured that was pretty good for 155ml capacity, though I'll probably give it another go, later after letting it sit for a while.
Nasty stuff... The oil looked pretty decent, but smell and consistency is ... unique.
Next up will be to split the supercharger, to swap out the coupler. Had to go get a bigger pry bar last night. The RTV, between the front and back, is going to take some effort to get to let go.
Alright kids... Don't be like me! I fought with splitting the supercharger for a couple of hours -- to the point of chewing up the pry tabs a good bit. Then I saw the bolt down the intake that I had missed.
Probably three or four times, I went looking for the bolt I missed. Each time, I overlooked the one in the intake. One it was out, the two halves came right apart. The coupler compartment was definitely nasty.
Cleaned both surfaces and put in the new coupler. Razor blade to scrape the old RTV -- use plastic scrapers if you can. It takes practice and care not to nick the surface with an actual razor blade. A quick buff with 1500 grit sand paper took any remaining RTV off.
And finally, my attempt at a "1mm" line of RTV. The bit area on the left is where I smudged it with the side of my hand, accidentally.
I didn't take pictures, but the results, once I put it back together and tightened things down, wasn't horrible. I didn't get excessive squeeze out. A bit more than what I removed when I was cleaning the old off, but not by a lot. So the supercharger is back together. New oil should arrive tomorrow. Unfortunately, the hose clips that attach underneath are on another order that is delayed, so it will be a while before the supercharger goes back in the car.
Yesterday was way less productive than I had hoped, but progress was made. Supercharger is back in the car and the last of the new metal cooling pipes is fitted, though not yet bolted in.
I mounted the throttle body and remnants of the symposer while the supercharger was still on the bench. That let be route and clip the throttle body coolant line and made it so I didn't have to fight the three symposer bracket bolts with it in the car.
And this is where I hit the first time killer. The wiring harness under the supercharger, that goes to the knock sensors and has the symposer solenoid connector, has cable clip on it -- circled in red below.
In prep for putting the supercharger in, I was double checking all the clips and fittings. I could not find the hold that clip fit in. I spent probably 30 minutes double checking everything for a missing bracket of other part that I missed somehow. It wasn't till my second pass through my pictures, that I realized that the mounting hole did not, in fact, exist. It used to clip in to bracket coming of the symposer connection on the intake.
Since the original retention point was gone, I snipped the clip off and used a couple of zip ties to attache it to the grey cross pipe in the pictures. Don't cinch the zip ties down too much as the pipe is rubber. I just wanted to ensure the harness wasn't flopping around and chaffing.
Next came the other big time sink -- getting the supercharger back in. If you are doing this yourself, find a friend to help put it back in. Yes, one person can do it, but two people would make it so much easier. Primarily, the second person can clip in the two electrical connectors prior the the supercharger being fully seated, so that you don't have to contort your hands in unnatural ways. V6 guys will have it much easier here. It took quite a bit of back and forth to get both connectors to click into place. A second person would also help with being able to properly route cooling and vacuum lines as the supercharger goes in, rather than after the fact. Oh, and your back will thank you too. Final caution, make sure you don't trap any harnesses or hoses under the plenums as you set the supercharger in place.
But, its in place.
With that done, I fitted the upper cooling pipe.
It's not yet been bolted down.
This is when I had another "oh crap, what am I missing" moment. The small barbed fitting, on the coolant hose coming from the throttle body, doesn't connect to anything. It's not actually drilled through. Again, I spent a good bit of time double checking things and looking for the coolant hose that I missed.
With that, I decided it was time to straighten up the bench and call it a day.
Yesterday, I put the charge air cooler and all the plumbing back in.
Also got the supercharger tensioner and belt in.
Now, for my notes on the process. First, a word of warning to anyone doing this...
Be extremely careful with the charge air cooler. In general, never set in down, with the radiators facing down. The radiator fins are exceedingly fine and fragile. Under no circumstances should you try and wipe them off. Even compressed air, or brakcleen sprayed at an angle can deform them. If you plop the cooler, radiator down, on top of the engine, in prep for dropping it in, you will have a bad day. Straightening bent up fins is doable, but if you attempt you should acknowledge that you have about a 50/50 shot of just needing to order a replacement cooler, unless you are very steady handed and have very fine tools to work with.
No, I did not have to order a new air cooler. This is just a pre-emptive warning for folks.
I reused the pins I made, for installing the supercharger, for installing the charge air cooler. I screwed them in on the four corners, dropped a new gasket over them, the slid the cooler down. I screwed in all the other bolts, to finger tight and then pulled the pins and put their bolts in.
Putting the plumbing back is pretty straight forward. My only recommendation is the lay all the pieces in place, before you start connecting fittings, just to make sure you have everything where it is supposed to go. Pay attention to what goes over, and what goes under, and things like that.
I had to pull the idler pulley to get the belt between it and the crank pulley. Getting it out, and both it and the tensioner torqued back required loosing the X brace so it could be shifted out of the way to get wrenches in. The new VAP tensioner is seriously strong. Putting the belt on was a two person job. There was no way I could put enough force on the tensioner to loosen it and also handle the belt. I loosened the tensioner and my wife slide the belt in place.
I started to re-install some of the air ducting and realized that the mounting tabs on both mid pipes were busted. I'm assuming this happened in whatever incident bent the headlight mounts before I owned the car. Replacements have been ordered.
Last weekend, I started the car for the first time in two months.
I had been waiting on replacement air intake pipes and they came in late last week. With them in hand, it was time to tackle the air filters. I've had the filters since I started the project, I just hadn't bothered to do them until now. Oh my, this is probably the worst air box design ever conceived. Given the form factor of the car, I'll forgive the location -- at least somewhat. Why couldn't they just make a nice clip together air box? Thin, deep thread screws, into plastic, in a location guaranteed to pick of road gunk... well, three of the screws broke off when I attempted to loosen them. Two on the right side and one on the left. I was able to convince the two on the right side to come out when vice grips and penetrating oil. The left hand side was a lost cause. The little bit of the shaft, remaining, sheared off almost level with the top side and was too close and fragile to pliers on.
The air filters themselves were not horrible. The random collection of flotsam and jetsam in the bottom of the airbox was interesting, to say the least. This is the "cleaner" of the two.
I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with the left side air box, when I noticed that its mounting bracket is cracked. Not the whole way through, but enough that replacing it would probably be good. The left side bumper is where the car had an impact in its past. This is hopefully the last remnants of that damage.
Now, about replacing the airbox. Oh my.... The airbox costs nearly as much as a damn headlight. (ok maybe not that bad) Left side air box assembly is $1,850 on SNG Barratt. I started looking around and the cheapest I found, for a used assembly, was about $800. So maybe I won't replace it. I decided to leave the problem of getting the rest of the screw shaft out and repairing the mount for future me. My goal for the weekend was to get the car running. Not driving, just running.
The left side still sealed up with one screw missing and it's just on the rubber grommets for now. Right side, I ran zip ties through the two holes with missing screws and tightened everything down.
With the air boxes in place, the final item to address was to put the vacuum control lines on the exhaust valves. I put some longer tubes on the end of both lines, and made sure nothing would flop around too much.
Some things to note -- I cleaned the intake valves when I had it apart. Nothing major, but certainly enough to get some extra carbon in some of the cylinders. Even though I plugged the valves, I'm almost positive some small amount of coolant probably made it in. Then we get to the lubricants used in the exhaust pipes, random penetrating oil floating around, and general fluids in places fluid don't normally get, the smoking is what I would consider "normal". It cleared within about five minutes.
The good news -- it starts, it runs, it sounds good, the check engine light isn't on, it's not dumping coolant on the floor.
The bad news -- it's squeaking. You can hear it starting in the above video.
So now we get to chase the squeak.
Some things about the squeak -- it started in the video above and became constant at idle, then after about 4-5 minutes of running while I was starting to bleed the cooling system, it went away at idle. However it still squeaks when revved:
. It also does come back at idle if I shut it down and let it sit for a while.
Once I got the cooling system bled, I started hunting for the squeak. A piece of vacuum tube make a reasonable makeshift stethoscope. The good news is that its not from the upper supercharger pulley. It's not the waterpump, tensioners, or upper idlers.
It took a while to finally locate it.
The sound is loudest between the lower idler and crank pulley and towards the crank pulley. I did note the amount of movement in the tensioner too. Either the belt is slipping and the change in pull, as it slips, is causing the tensioner movement or the belt and pulley rib clearance is too tight and so the belt doesn't sit fully in the grooves all the time. This causes slippage, both around and into the pulley and change in belt geometry causing the tensioner to move. Anybody want to confirm that theory? Or shoot holes in it?
@Scott_VelocityAP Have you guys seen movement like that with the high strength tensioner?
Beyond the squeak, the car seems happy. I did also apply the transmission tune, not that it matters at this point. The engine runs nice and smooth and, as I noted, no CEL. Obviously I haven't put any real load on it yet, but good place to start. I had to leave on a business trip on Monday, so it will be at least next weekend before I can go any further. I need to finish the suspension part of the project before I can test drive it.
Scott and I exchanged emails and he gave me a path to determining what is causing the squeak. However, he may have also inadvertently identified the source, without even knowing it.
Right now, my money is on it being the accessory belt and not the supercharger belt. Among other reasons is that I ordered the wrong belt. Not fundamentally the wrong belt, but the part number changes at VIN K25726. My VIN is in the 38000 range. I went back and checked after my email exchange with Scott (he didn't suggest the wrong belt, but I thought to double check) and found that sure enough, I had ordered T2H3354, which is the part number up to K25725. I should have ordered T2R91501 which is the part number for K25725 and on. Now, I don't know what the practical difference in the two parts is, but given how little it takes to make a belt squeak or squeal, it would not at all surprise me if that's the problem.
I dislike paying dealer mark up, but I'm going to call my dealership tomorrow and see if they have it in stock. If so, I'll have the wife run pick it up as I get home Saturday, well after they close. If they don't have it, then I'll order one from one of the online sources and probably just put the original belt back on in the interim. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the original belt -- no wear or cracking. I only replaced it as an "I'm in there" item.
If one of the JLR tech types knows what the change in the belts was, I'd be curious. Otherwise, I'll do the comparison once I get the correct part number.
I got to spend some time working on the car yesterday and today. I confirmed that I had the wrong drive belt (proper on is on order). I also confirmed that the original belt doesn't fix the squeak. I got a "proper" (cheap Amazon) automotive stethoscope delivered while I was gone. Put it to use today. Squeak is not from bearings. Definitely coming from the area between the idler and crank pulley. On a 5.0L, with the oversized crank pulley, there is very little space there, so I haven't been able to narrow down which of the two is causing the noise.
Once the proper drive belt arrives, I'll pull the belts back off and double check the the lower supercharger idler alignment.
As best I can determine, the squeak is coming from the belt as it loops over the top of the crank pulley.
Spritzing the supercharger belt with cheap washer fluid (mostly alcohol) makes the squeak disappear for a moment. That narrows it to the supercharger pulley. Dousing the the crank pulley with the same stuff makes the squeak go away for longer (more fluid to dissipate) and when it comes back it is more pronounced. This makes some sense as the fluid would have washed off any dust and debris. Now we go old school to figure out exactly what part of the belt is squeaking. Enter cheap white deodorant. Apply it to various parts of the belt and when the squeak stops, you know the area of the belt that is causing the squeak. The close confines make it tricky on the F Type. I cut my teeth on late 70s and 80s trucks with much more space in the engine bay. The outside of the belt that loops over the upper supercharger pulley is also the outside of the belt as it loops around the crank pulley. It is, however, the inside of the belt as it crosses the lower idler. That, and the front edge of the belt are the easiest to check. They did not stop the squeak, which generally rules out the idler. From the underside, you can kind of get to the other side of the belt -- the side that contacts the crank pulley. Be careful -- shoving things in and around a running belt is sketchy, no other way to describe it. I could only get contact with about half the belt, but it was enough to stop the squeak for a bit. That tells me what but not why.
So that's the current state of things. My correct drive belt showed up Thursday, so I'll be taking both belts off today. I'm going to pull the whole supercharger tensioner assembly, to make sure the idler pulley is properly seated. I'm also probably going to pull the crank pulley off and check it for signs of wear, to see if there is further hints as to what is going on. Thought I might get the flexible camera out and see if I can get good enough visibility without taking it back off.
There was definitely contamination. Definitely rubber. I took a pick an cleaned all the grooves.
This is what I dug out. At least what I swept off the floor.
So now the question is where did it come from. I'm going to guess that some of it is from the belt wearing in, especially with the GripTec pulley. However some of it felt more like it was manufacturing flash or something like that. If you look closely at the first picture, in the left grooves, you can see compressed rubber at the bottom of the groove.
After cleaning it all out.
This is the other side of the belt -- the "outside". It contacts the idler and nothing else.
I measured both sides. The inside might be 1/10th of a millimeter narrower for the ridges, but it's really hard to measure accurately. The visually look different but measure the same practically.
I pulled off the crank pulley, to check it for any obvious marks.
None of the grooves show any signs of wear -- not that I really expected them too. The car has run less than an hour with the belt on. Most of it at idle. I will note that the belt does not contact either edge, when aligned properly. Nor do the top of the ridges in the belt contact the bottom of the Vs in the pulley., Primary points of contact are the top of the pulley ridges against the bottom of the Vs in the belt. This would be where the build up on the belt was. No other issues with the pulley. It was well seated against the drive belt pulley.
2017 F-Type R, VAP supercharger pulley upgrades
The airbox costs nearly as much as a damn headlight. (ok maybe not that bad) Left side air box assembly is $1,850 on SNG Barratt. I started looking around and the cheapest I found, for a used assembly, was about $800. So maybe I won't replace it. I decided to leave the problem of getting the rest of the screw shaft out and repairing the mount for future me. My goal for the weekend was to get the car running. Not driving, just running.
I got a "proper" (cheap Amazon) automotive stethoscope delivered while I was gone. Put it to use today. Squeak is not from bearings. Definitely coming from the area between the idler and crank pulley. On a 5.0L, with the oversized crank pulley, there is very little space there, so I haven't been able to narrow down which of the two is causing the noise.
