Help! Possible Supercharger Issue

[joemama22]

I have an '04 Comp G with 70,000 miles on it. Yesterday I started it and heard a loud whinning coming from the hood. It sounds like it's coming from the supercharger. Car seems to run fine. Could this be a pully, SC oil, belt, or the entire supercharger?
Any help would be appreciated. I don't want to take it to the dealer yet, cause I know they will tell me I need a whole new supercharger.

[blueguy]

Take the S/C belt off...if it still makes the noise...then it isn't S/C related. If it stops...then it's probably a tensioner or idler

[joemama22]

Is it hard to remove the SC belt? Do I neeed any special tools?

[blueguy]

15mm...or a belt removal tool...either one will work. Just put it on the tensioner and push it towards the front of the car. Easy.

[joemama22]

Thanks alot. I will go try it right now.

[joemama22]

Well, I removed the belt and the noise went away. First off, is it ok to drive the car without the S/C. Secondly, can I put some WD40 on the pulleys to stop the sound? Let me know your thoughts on this. Thanks again.

[Bio248]

its okay to drive with the blower belt off. the car is just retarded slow without it.

WD-40 isnt gonna fix a pulley problem.

[joemama22]

Yeah, I just took it for a drive and can't believe how slow it is now. It's like driving my girlfriends Ford Focus Do you think I just need to replace the pulley? If that is the case, I should upgrade to a smaller pulley.

[98gtp]

It's probabaly one of the idler pulleys (bearings) for the supercharger, not the pully on the supercharger, feel how all of them turn with the engine off.

[Fivefingerdeathpunch]

DONT DROP PULLEY SIZE!!!!!!, you need supporting mods for that, but thats a whole new adventure there.

Its prolly the tensioner pully.

[starscream5000]

You might as well upgrade the tensioner pulley to a larger one from either ZZP or wbodystore.com. You can still use your stock sized S/C belt, you'll have a new pulley with new bearings, and you will not need to get a different belt if you drop pulley sizes in the furture down to 3.4" IIRC.

If it still makes the noise after than, then it may be the S/C coupler.

[blueguy]

S/C coupler doesn't squeal or whine...that sounds like tumbling rocks.

[kx2000gtp]

put the belt back on and use a stethoscope or looong screwdriver to listen to the S/C pulley, Idler, and tensioner. You should be able to easily tell which one is giving you your noise then be able to replace it...

[SJAndrew]

The SC bearings are pretty robust and submurged in oil. The pulleys use sealed bearings designed to be permanently lubricated. The trouble is that they're out in the engine compartment and exposed to heat cycles and road debris.

Point being, they're definitely the weak link. The rubber seals will crack and fail - allowing the lubricant to escape and the bearings to run dry.

About 3 years ago (80k miles maybe), one of my pulleys failed and tossed a belt. While I was at it, I took off all of the pulleys and noted that they were all failing - the bearings were dry as a bone.

Take your belts off and remove each pulley. My guess is that your bearings are also failing. If you spin the pulley by hand, you shouldn't hear anything and should have a slight resistance. If you spin it and it spins freely and you can hear the balls rolling against the race, then the bearing has failed and the pulley needs to be replaced.