'Shifter

After a month of gathering parts, my FRC went to a friends shop for the dreaded harmonic balancer swap and the compressor change-mine leaked mid-body, as is the norm for that design. I went with a ATI stock configuration balancer, as I don't ever want to do this again.

So Korey (the tech) is loosening the rack, and a tab of metal hits the floor. It's one of the rack mount tabs, the bolt was holding it in....apparently, the last one to move the rack (before I owned it), overtightened it. So, since all of the local mobile welders were either out of town, or on their way out of town, the cradle needed to come out, and be sent to a non-mobile welder.

This is the time to change any suspect pulleys, so I sent him a couple, and they are even "Made in the USA", and they both wobbled...
One could be salvaged, as the bearing just wasn't pressed flush, the other was junk.

He's already installed my balancer with a Lisle LS1 balancer tool (p/n 53460, if anyone cares-nice kit), and an ARP bolt.

It's on to the a/c next....

Vetteman Jack

You seem to have the same luck I do - expect to do a simple project and end up having a host of other problems to deal with. Hope the rest of the repairs goes better.

'Shifter

The balancer is on, the subrame back in place (though now I need an alignment, most likely), the a/c compressor and related goodies are in place, it's being evacuated now....

Hopefully no start-up snags, like a bad compressor...knock on wood....

'Shifter

Got 'er back home today, everything seems fine and quiet!


BTW: I went with the new Gates Racing Belts, they are blue!

damilleniumboy

Do you have a part number for the belts and were did you get them at?

'Shifter

Part numbers are:

K060798rb (main)
K040420rb (a/c)

Any parts house that carries Gates should be able to help. I had to order mine in as they are new to the market.

leadfoot4

Good to hear. I have a question....how did you know your a/c compressor was going bad? I was getting an intermittent noise at start up, and someone here at the Forum suggested it might be the A.I.R. pump, so I pulled it out and cleaned/oiled it. Noise was gone for a while, but it dawned on me that the couple of times I heard the noise, it was when the a/c was engaged.

When I switched on the a/c today, I heard the "growling" noise for about 10 seconds. However, by the time I pop the hood latch and get out of the car, and get the hood up, the noise usually goes away. However, it seems to be originating in the lower front of the engine compartment, but possibly in the area of the radiator fans....


No codes on the DIC, and the a/c low side pressure is OK.

'Shifter

The compressor actually functioned fine, but it was leaking a/c oil around the join-seam of the compressor, and misting on my brand-new GM belts, and probably didn't help my damper at all. The damper separated, moved forward, bending the belt-track off line, and because that ran that way for a bit, killed all the bearings in my idler/tensioner pulleys. I took this opportunity to change the a/c tensioner-I went with an A/C Delco, the aftermarket versions are poop. I also changed the pulley on my Katech tensioner, as it was a little rough too.

leadfoot4

Thanks for the info!

'Shifter

Oh....I forgot, I used A/C Delco a/c oil p/n: 10-5026-good stuff!