Noise from the aircon pulley.

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Kowalski
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Noise from the aircon pulley.

Post by Kowalski »

I've got a bit of a rattle from my air con compressor, only when the air-con is off, it disappears completely when I turn the air con on. I thought I'd better fix it before the pulley drops off!

I'm guessing that the "idle" bearings in the pulley are dead or dying and need replacing. I've got a Sanden manual that suggests the pulley is easy enough to remove, what I was wondering was how easy it is to replace the bearings in the pulley, are they standard types that are replacable? Has anybody else had one of these apart beofre?
Last edited by Kowalski on 02 Aug 2006, 15:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Kowalski
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Post by Kowalski »

An update here.

I've taken the pulley off my air con compressor now. The particular compressor I have is the Delphi / Harrison one, there are several different types (differing mostly in the gas connections on the end) but they share a common clutch and pulley setup.

There is a nut on the central shaft that can be removed, it takes a bit of ingenuity to shift this because the central shaft is free to turn and there isn't an obvious way of stopping it from turning, in the end I needed a second person and a strap wrench with an 18 inch breaker bar to hold it steady, I couldn't put it in a vice because the compressor is still on the car. After this nut is removed, I found that the inside of the clutch is threaded. A "special tool" was duly machined and tapped and had a central hole drilled and tapped to take a bolt, the "special tool" was screwed into the clutch and the bolt tightened. Again the clutch had to be stopped from turning but it came off quite easilly.

The next step is to remove the pulley, this has a circlip holding it in place, once that was removed it could be pulled off with a standard 3 legged puller. The bearing comes off with it, the bearing is "riveted" into the pulley, so to remove the bearing from the pulley, it had to be stuck in the lathe and machined a bit to remove the rivetting.

Now the real fun begins. It turns out that the bearing is a what the bearing trade calls a "special". A "special" is a bearing that is a non standard size or non standard specification, usually for a special application. A good example of a "special" is the Xantia front wheel bearing, although it is used across several PSA models it is a "special".

The part number on my bearing is NSK 6559469, 62mm outside diameter, 40mm inside diameter, 20.6mm wide 24 balls. I spoke to a couple of bearing suppliers and none stocked it. In fact, only one supplier could source the bearing in a reasonable time period, so I've got one on order and by the time it gets to me it will have cost the thick end of £50, thats not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Nobody I've spoken to yet supplies parts for air con compressors or even reconditions them, they simply replace them, its all rather a sad state of affairs.

I'll post another update when I get the bearing installed and everything running again.
alan s
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Post by alan s »

Kowalski wrote:An update here.


I'll post another update when I get the bearing installed and everything running again.
Please do and I'll get it shifted into common problems and fixes for easier access for future reference.


Alan S
RIP Sept 19th 2008.

She said "Put the cat out" She didn't mention it was on fire!!
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AndersDK
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Post by AndersDK »

Bearing Manufacturer SKF offers very good information on bearing constrution, types, type selection and finally bearing selection charts on their website.

Most of my biggest problems during my years as DIY'er has always been related somehow to worn out bearings - and finding a source for such bearings.

http://www.skf.com

- and they also list a complete range of accompaniying axle seals.
Anders (DK) - '90 BX16Image
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Kowalski
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Post by Kowalski »

I've had a quick look at that site Anders, for information on bearings its pretty good. Unfortunately, it doesn't list a bearing that I could replace the one I've got with, the ones with the right diameters are too wide! I suppose thats why the bearing I've got is a "special". I considered two singles but again, two are two wide...
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AndersDK
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Post by AndersDK »

Type 61908 is 12mm wide/deep ...
Anders (DK) - '90 BX16Image
alan s
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Post by alan s »

This crew apparently made a lot of bearings and seals for Cits over the past few years I understand.

http://www.ahrinternational.com/ina_bearings.htm

You may find something in there as I have found SKF dealers seem to have problems getting info/specs on Citroen stuff for some reason.


Alan S
RIP Sept 19th 2008.

She said "Put the cat out" She didn't mention it was on fire!!
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Kowalski
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Post by Kowalski »

AndersDK wrote:Type 61908 is 12mm wide/deep ...
Thats a single row bearing, my special is a double row, I'd considered a pair of 61908s but that would be 3.4mm too wide (24mm vs 20.6mm) and the clutch air gap is dependant on the width of the bearing.
alan s wrote:This crew apparently made a lot of bearings and seals for Cits over the past few years I understand.
The compressor is not a Citroen specific part, GM owns Delphi / Harrison and the compressor part number is GMV5. I would suspect that this same compressor or variants of it are on a number of cars from other manufacturers (Vauxhall in the UK, Opel in Denmark and Holden in Oz for example).

My bearing is at the bearing stockists and I'll pick up it tomorrow, as I mentioned above, an update will follow. Where I live there they used to build a large percentage of the worlds shipping, now even though the ships are no longer built here the experience and support for engineering remains and the bearing stockists can get a hold of the difficult ones. I've found a good place to get bearings from in future.
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AndersDK
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Post by AndersDK »

I see your point now kowalski -

You dont throw out a £50 bearing special ordered :lol:
Anders (DK) - '90 BX16Image
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Kowalski
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Post by Kowalski »

Update number 2.

Assuming that nothing breaks, the job is done.

The "special" bearing only cost £38, which is still expensive for a bearing. Its a different part number from what I quoted above, its Nachi and I don't have the box to hand so I can't quote a part number. I looked up the bearing on the Nachi site, it came back as 40BGS8G-2DST or 40BGS8G-2DL (depending on what shields / dust covers are fitted) which are different to the part number on my bearing but the same spec of bearing.

Anyway, the bearing was pressed into to the pulley using a vice and the old bearing outer, it went in easilly. The pulley outer had to be peened over at 3 spots with a hammer and pin punch, the pin punch had to be ground to give a nice square edge, this might not be the best way of fixing the "rivetting" that makes sure the bearing can't fall out of the pulley but its the only way I had available to me. To make sure the punch couldn't slip or jump and damage the bearing seals, the punch was held in place using a pair of molegrips (vice grips or any other brand of locking pliers would work too) ;). The next step was to fit the bearing and pulley to the compressor, it was tapped on using a hammer and the old bearing inner as a drift. Once the pulley was bashed into place, the circlip went on.

Fitting the clutch "armature" is the next step, this requires "special tools". The difficulty here is that the nut didn't actually contact the clutch, it only contacted the square key. It would appear that air gap is adjustable by how far along the shaft you pull the pulley, once in place the key is tightened up with the nut so that it locks the pulley in place. The special tool was a piece of steel bar 13.5mm in diameter, tapped at one end (9 mm x 1.25 to fit the shaft on the compressor). The tool had a flat machined onto the tapped end, the flat is machined on so that the "tool" will go inside the armature and pass the square key. The tool was tapped further up the shaft and those threads were used to drive the pulley on. I'm not sure whether it was necessary to leave the key in the armature whilst pulling it on, but I couldn't see how else I could maintain its alignment, and if the alignment went wrong, I couldn't see how I'd be able to correct it without removing and refitting it. The armature was slid up the end of the tool with the flat, then the tool was screwed onto the shaft. Next, the threads further up the tool were used to drive the armature onto its shaft, once the driving was started the tool could not be removed, until the shaft key was clear of it, i.e. the key and the flat on the tool stop the tool from unscrewing. The tool was used because it used more of the shaft threads than a single nut could, because I needed to press on the armature without pressing on it the key and it provided a means of stopping the compressor shaft from turning whilst I screwed the armature on.

The clutch air gap is adjustable, as far as I can tell it is adjusted by how far you press the armature along its shaft, i.e. there is nothing to stop you pressing the armature too far along the shaft. This means that if there were enough shaft length, the extra width of the "wrong" bearings wouldn't matter. I didn't have a set of feeler gauges, what I did have was a disposable scalpel whose blade was 0.5mm thick. Sanden give the specs for the air gap on their compressors as 0.4mm to 0.8mm so I worked to those specs with my 0.5mm feeler. Once the armature gave the correct gap, the nut went on and was tightened, it appeared to move the armature along the shaft, closing up the gap so I stopped tightening it!

The good news is that my car is back together now and it all works again. 2 days of labour and machining up 2 special tools is what it took. I maybe should have taken some photos, I may still take photos of the special tools. Incidentally, 9mm is not a common size and after phoning several specialist places trying to track down nuts bolts or taps in that size I managed to find a tap in that size.

All in all its been a pain, replacing the compressor would have cost a minimum of £215+VAT, then there is the labour in removing it, the alternator and hydraulic pump. Then the system would need vacuuming out and refilling with gas, possibly needing a new drier too, £38 plus the cost of a 9mm tap, some phone calls and some diesel seems good value. 4 days holiday, spent working on the car (2 of those days spent on the timing belt and water pump), I'm going back to work tomorrow for a rest!
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Kowalski
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Joined: 15 Oct 2003, 17:41
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My Cars: Ex 05 C5 2.0 HDI Exclusive 145k
Ex 97 Xantia 1.9TD SX 144k
Ex 94 Xantia Dimension 1.9TD 199k

Post by Kowalski »

More information, I've found a couple of sites with useful information.

Firstly, http://www.polarbearinc.com/PBPC/homepa ... rings.html this site lists parts, it has a bearing interchange list.

Secondly, https://www.flashoffroad.com/Maintenanc ... ervice.htm this is a guide written by somebody who has replaced a clutch / pulley assembly because of a dodgy bearing. He bought the correct tools rather than machining his own!

It would have been nice to have this information before I started!
Last edited by myglaren on 14 Mar 2020, 20:01, edited 1 time in total.
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