Ahhhh...sweet silence. (replaced rollers)
 

At 65K miles, I replaced the idler rollers for the serpentine belt this weekend. They were making a rattling noise like something was loose in there. The bearings had some play in them that was causing the rattle. Sweet silence now. :D

Several folks have talked about their bearings exploding and causing damage to other parts so you may want to look at replacing them as the mileage adds up. The parts were $150 from Sunset Porsche ($300 at the local dealer) for all three rollers and the hardware that comes with them. It took about an hour, with about 20 minutes of the time spent opening/closing the front engine cover. Only 4 sockets needed and one open-end wrench. I'll post the procedure on my website soon if anyone wants to do it.

As an aside, I'm going to pull one of the rollers apart and see if the bearings can be replaced with some higher grade bearings that may last longer and cost even less.

deliriousga -

What's the url for your website?

I haven't gotten much on it yet and several links don't work, but it's http://www.theschillings.com

As a matter of fact, I just looked and even though I've created a few pages none of them are linked to the buttons. I'll add the site to my signature to make it easier to find as I update things. I'll try and get on it tonight.

my idler let go last month
 

strangely, the bearings didn't let go, the pulley metal holding the bearing in place cracked almost al the way around. If you picture a donut laying flat on the table, then cutting the hole out of the donut, that's what happened to me.

Hey, it's a good start. I look forward to seeing your site develop. You're one of the most active DIY Porsche mechanics around and pretty generous with the advice from your experience. I don't know where you find time to drive your cars with all the improvements you make!

I've seen a few with the ball bearings missing or completely gone on other forums. I forgot about your pulley splitting like that so thanks for the reminder. :D That must be why they updated the pulley itself. When I ordered the parts, they all have updated numbers. They also have a part number on just the pulley, unlike the originals. The originals are numbered to replace the pulley, the steel insert and the steel cover. Next time I will only replace pulley and not all of the hardware. The hardware was all in great shape.

With mspell bringing up the pulley splitting in half I'm going to skip pulling the bearings out and replacing them. I'll toss the old pulleys instead. I'll look at the pulleys more closely and see if I can find any differences between them just out of curiosity.

Thanks. I love working on them and they are both daily drivers, 928 for me and Boxster for my wife, so we get plenty of drive time in. I have always loved figuring out how things work so it's kind of a hobby for me.

Hopefully the postings can help someone save a little time instead of having to figure it out. I know it helps me with all of the questions I ask hoping someone has BTDT. Tool Pants is an amazing source of info as I think he's done almost everything to the Boxster. It's also helpful when I post something and others chime in with their shortcuts and/or something that's totally different with their model or if something I'm doing is off the wall. It's what makes the forums so wonderful. :cheers:

Keep it up Delirious. You've inspired me to do a lot of work myself. So I have a ton of parts just waiting for me to take the plunge. I may be calling you frantic!!!

idler pulley
 

hi, how do you remove the pulley off the long alternator bolt. regards nigel

My car needs this exact repair, talk about serendipity! Mine isn't rattling, it's more like an intermittent squeal usually at idle RPM, I'll be scoping your website.

Someone posted something recently about rebuilding pulleys himself. I didn't bookmark the thread, but did bookmark the bearing. I have a couple pulleys laying around here somewhere from when I replaced 2 of my three pulleys, but haven't verified if this is the correct bearing. Crazy cheap though $9.95!


Edit! The link that was previously posted (and I had re-posted) was for the wrong bearing size. I pressed out my old bearing this morning and measured it. This is the exact size bearing that came out of my pulley (from a 2003 Boxster S)
http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/PROD/Kit7187