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First of all, I'll try to keep this short-ish. And I need to admit that I had heard a buzzing sound for some time that got louder the day before it happened, and smelled a strange super-glue smell that day as well.
Wednesday, while on about mile marker 58 on I-80 in Wyoming, and headed to Iowa, my 1991 9000S shut down and limped to the side of the road, accompanied with a bad burned rubber smell. The engine would not even turn over with the starter motor. I popped the hood and noticed:
1. Belt all tangled up behind the crankshaft pulley
2. loose bolt on idler pulley
3. idler pulley completely melted around seized bearing
That explains the buzzing and super glue smell. The belt had appeared fine, so I was just going to keep an eye on it. I was looking in the wrong place, and have gained a good bit of wisdom the past couple days.
I actually found a belt at a local Napa in Rock Springs. Also, apparently the idler pulley from a 1995 GM pickup with a 350 V8 is the same size in OD and ID, though I didn't end up using it. Those meager parts were not enough.
During its brief stay between the crank pulley and the block, the Serp belt decided to trash the Aperture disk, bending it quite badly. The rotating, bent, steel Aperture disk then trashed the Crank position sensor so as to make it quite unusable, unless I had been able to figure out what to do with a dozen pieces of broken aluminum, a cubical magnet and a broken solid-state sensor.
I was able to order parts from the saab dealer in Salt Lake City, a mere 200 miles away. They got them in the next day, I rented a car and picked them up. Repair was straightforward but quite a bit more of a hassle than I would have liked.
I would also like to note that the idler pulleys from saab dealers now have a special washer that goes on the outside, protecting the entirety of the bearing from outside influence. I guess saab must have noticed that a seized bearing there might yield quite a catastrophic failure.
I will close by stating that there were no less than a dozen cars broken down between Salt Lake City and Rock springs, but that's really no justification for my having joined the ranks a couple of days previous. Now that I know how easy it is to remove the fender liner and compress the tensioner piston by cranking CCW on the bolt, it will be easy enough for me to check pulley condition in the future.
Also, how the heck do I put that rubber oval 'access hatch' thingee back in? You know, the thing with the 15 or so rivet-looking things that are supposed to go into the holes in the fender liner? I simply was unable to get it back in there and am considering simply nipping off the rubber 'rivets' and gluing some nuts to the inside of the fender liner and attaching it with bolts.
And just so you can have a little chuckle with me, I was really scratching my head about how to route the connector for the crank position sensor back through the area between the head, alternator, and intake manifold. Then I saw the little flip-tabs and realized that I needed to take the connector off and feed the 'bare' wires through, and everything all came together nicely. Car started right up after 3 days of nothing working.
And finally, just a comment/question. Why the heck couldn't that sensor be mounted on the camshaft, where there's a plug in my head? Like where a distributor used to be. Out of the way of nasty spinning belts with destruction on their minds? I mean, sure, it would rotate twice for every crank revolution, but that only seems to me to increase resolution. Ah well, my fault anyway. I guess this is just a cautionary tale, suggesting that everyone maintain their idler pulley! For a cheap plastic pulley it sure has an important job. The $18 pulley for the GM v8 was all metal and at least would not have melted and slumped like the saab one did, but I replaced both pulleys with saab parts and will just keep the metal one as an emergency spare.
Just wanted to share! Comments or commiseration welcome. :)
posted by 70.41.128...
, Mon, 2 Jul 2007 12:41:21
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