Hi folks,

Any suggestions for diagnosing what is causing the growling sound now emanating from my TRD S/C? I'm pretty damn certain I've got bad bearings now. Damnit. Only 4 months of use out of 1 freaking new set of bearings on the blower side and a new shaft and bearings on the pulley side.

Crap.

 

post a sound clip and a better description of where the "growl" is coming from. it can be many things...

 

hahaha ok

 

prolly bad bearings

 

OK, I put the videos on youtube.
This one was taken just after we installed it. Sounded kind of whiney but otherwise quiet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWd5rJEBf_8


More recently, in the past few days;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWJ0WVes6Tw
I think it's the bearings on the pulley side crapping out unfortunately. I think I'll need to replace the bearings and possibly the shaft Gompka gave me. Ugh... I wonder if I should just do a grease fitting like he did.

 

The sound on the youtube videos isn't working right for me, all i hear is like a banging sound. Anyway, if the bearings go out, very unlikely for them to damage the shaft, unless you have been driving with that sound for months. If you say its "growling" rather than "squeeling" i think its more likely your bearings spinning inside the pulley housing. You'd have to pull off the shaft again to check that. Grease fitting is always 100% recommended as the design is crap, the shaft/bearings I was using is still going strong. Do you drive long distance a lot?

 

I don't think its youtube being weird.. I've watched the first video before and it had the exact banging noise that I hear now

 

do you have another video with the sound? it doesnt seem to be working

 

i dont think u recorded the audio right

 

When did u buy the SC? Did a dealer install it? If its still under waranty take it back to ur dealer. They will diagnose it, tell u its shot, they'll then call TRD and have the newly redesigned SC delivered overnight and hopefully installed the next day. Your experience may vary (especially considering i installed mine myself) but for me, recieving the new unit was a breeze. Now i got the new SC (with the new shaft design and bearings) and not a single issue 8k later. Good luck man.

 

He's got the upgraded bearings and shaft, so I'm sure he was out of warranty, now don't you get to happy with the "new, new" redesigned version you have, cause I've had 2 of them and they both went bad, I recently finished rebuilding the last one with upgraded bearings for the blower and upgraded shaft bearings and shaft an so far so good, I have about 1K miles on it, took the car on a 400 mile trip to AZ and back(that's about 800 miles) and made it back with no issues and it is running great/strong. I have a feeling he is having the same problem I ran into, the piece that bolts on to the end of the shafts, you know the one that mates with the blower(it has 3 holes that line up to the end of the output shaft), that one was loose for me, I took a piece of wood to the top of it and hit it with a hammer, then I added JBWeld all the way around the crack where the 2 parts come together, picture below:

let it dry over night, put back in the next day and so far the noise it was making for me went away, I'm betting this is what it is happening to his.

 

Fingers crossed...

 

Well, so far yours has made it longer then mine, the 2 I was speaking about only lasted me about 5K miles, you've gone 8K so far, wish you luck and hope it goes longer then that too.

 

hey etli any updates? can you make a second clip with audio

 

Trying to figure out why kind of video makes youtube happy...

My phone does *.gp2 extension as video...

Youtube says they like mp2 or mp4. Anyone got a good free program they like that does the conversion? I'll re-post the video when I get it converted.

 

i used a mac pro because youtube didnt like the format straight from the camera

 

I shot this vid with my phone and uploaded just fine:

Here's what my SC sounds like in the morning's 1st start.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldCqFRC9aP8

 

Took it to the shop today. Bearing on pulley side closest to supercharger is bad. EEK. Only lasted freaking 4-5 months. Will be having the shop redo pulley side housing with grease fitting and more upscale bearings. Hope it works.

Probably gonna also take off the TRD heat shield and just use thermal wrap to make the SC easier to put on and take off.

 

keep us updated with the bearings you decide to use. i just ordered the NTN 6205 LL BC3 if there is something out there better (for a reasonable price) ill ship those back.

 

You prob. ran into the same problem as me, they way TRD designed this thing with that springs washer inside the shaft bearing assembly is just wrong, mine got f'up when I installed the shaft into the housing, I started to tighten everything up and for some reason the shaft was too hard to spin by hand, since it was my first time doing this I figured it was normal and would loosen up over time, was I wrong, a day and a half later the shaft bearings started making a weird noise. Luckily I had another shaft and bearings from gompka, but this time when I put it I decided to keep the little spring washer out, added some loctite from here: https://www.rshughes.com/products/079340_68005.html , I ordered 3, two for the inside of the shaft housing and one to add to the top/outer race of the shaft bearings, then I put everything back together and it spun by hand nice and freely, I now have about 2K miles on this set-up and no problems(knock on wood lol). So if there's any kind of pressure on either side of the bearings, which using that spring washer will, it will put stress on the bearings and they will wear out wrong and faster. If you or anybody decides to try what I did, I would suggest to test it out first, put some grease inside the shaft housing and put the shaft inside, if there's no side to side movement, then you're good, if there is you need to find a way to stop it from doing that, mine did not move from side to side, it fit nice and snug and the loctite is holding it in place instead of that spring washer. Try it at your own risk thou and good luck. Oh...and don't forget to check that thing I posted above as well.