[Viperguy324]

I think I am going to remove the pulley assembly- when you say the motor has to be raised once I have removed the bolt that attaches the pulley assembly to the upper engine mount is there enough play in the other mounts that I can jack the engine up a bit from the bottom to get the pulley assembly out? Or do I have to loosen or remove some or all of the other engine mount bolts?

Only the right side mount needs to be removed and then a jack should be enough to get you high enough to extract the bolts. PM me and I can give you my number if you wish to go into detail...

 

[am143a]

Only the right side mount needs to be removed and then a jack should be enough to get you high enough to extract the bolts. PM me and I can give you my number if you wish to go into detail...

Thanks. I will be in touch if I run into difficulties.

 

[not-a-number]

Im getting a slight chirp from the belt. Belt is 10k miles old so Im surprised. When I add a little bit of antislip spray it starts to squeal like crazy then sorts itself out and is quiet for a couple of days.

Im guessing this indicates its the belt or could it be idlers etc?

 

[Viperguy324]

Im getting a slight chirp from the belt. Belt is 10k miles old so Im surprised. When I add a little bit of antislip spray it starts to squeal like crazy then sorts itself out and is quiet for a couple of days.

Im guessing this indicates its the belt or could it be idlers etc?

All depends.. does it get worse when increasing RPM? If you are spraying something on and it changes the sound It would point to the belt, as that spray would not really make its way into bearings or the races.

 

[not-a-number]

It does increase with rpm. But I imagine both bearing and belt noise would increase with rpm?
I have a belt on the way so will do that soon. What inspection can I do when the belt is off? Can do any preventative work like loctiting pulleys? (without taking the whole plate off)

 

[Tweetdriver63]

Mine was making a vibrating noise, then I heard the squeal one time. Shortly thereafter, while I was looking right at it, the tensioner pulley on top, just aft of the main supercharger pulley (which I had already determined was the source of the noise) came to a stop. Full stop. Belt still gliding across it, but pulley not turning.

This one right here.

The car is currently at an independent shop, and I should get some word today on the $$$ damage.

 

[friss]

Mine was making a vibrating noise, then I heard the squeal one time. Shortly thereafter, while I was looking right at it, the tensioner pulley on top, just aft of the main supercharger pulley (which I had already determined was the source of the noise) came to a stop. Full stop. Belt still gliding across it, but pulley not turning.

This one right here.
View attachment 1306617
The car is currently at an independent shop, and I should get some word today on the $$$ damage.

Luckily on the S Evora's you can get that pulley separately here

V6 Exige & Evora Idler Pulley A132E6515S | EliseParts

V6 Exige & Evora Idler Pulley A132E6515S for sale on EliseParts

www.eliseparts.com

V6 Lightweight Idler Pulley A132E6515S | EliseParts

V6 Lightweight Idler Pulley A132E6515S for sale on EliseParts

www.eliseparts.com

 

[sicklyscott]

A lot of people attempting to fix this, haven't heard much about success stories. I see Elise parts sells 2 of the 3 types of pulleys required for the top bracket for at least the S cars. Has anyone found the third?

I get a chirp for the first 5 mins or so from a cold start. I'd love to see if I could fix it. Car has about 37,xxx miles on it.

 

[agentdr8]

A lot of people attempting to fix this, haven't heard much about success stories. I see Elise parts sells 2 of the 3 types of pulleys required for the top bracket for at least the S cars. Has anyone found the third?

I get a chirp for the first 5 mins or so from a cold start. I'd love to see if I could fix it. Car has about 37,xxx miles on it.

@Grady listed all the bearings found in the pulleys in this post.

 

[2sblind]

So looks like my upper (ribbed) supercharger bracket idler pulley is shot and needs replacement. Thankfully, this seems like the easiest access wise to get to.

I ended up going with the Eliseparts compete replacement. I’m not up to speed with who the legit bearing resellers are and didn’t want to risk getting knock off parts, and the price difference between the complete pulley vs the skf authorized retailers for the inner and outer bearings didn’t end up being all that much.

Does anyone know or have an idea of a torque value for these? I’ll look through the evora service notes but I think lotus wants you to replace the whole bracket if there’s any issues so I doubt that info is in there. It looks like the engine idlers call for 40 ft lbs so that is probably a good place to start.

@Grady Do you happen to remember what you used or did you just snug it on tight?

Anyone have any thoughts on if I should use a dab of blue loctite or not?

Thanks!

 

[A_Moller]

Good thread. I started a similar one at The Lotus Forums and got kindly adviced to take a look here to get better input. However, meanwhile I have been able to gather some additional information, which I would like to share. It might be redundant in some respect, but I summarize what I know to have it all in one place.

Basically you have four pulley sizes; 70 mm on the block, 60 / 52.5 mm on the head (around the SC) and 50 mm at the interface between block and head. Given the real speed ratio (based on belt average speed through the belt cross section), they rotate with 14 600, 17 000 / 18 360, respectively 20 300 rpm. All the Lotus ones, in the two latter positions consists of a pair of 6004 and 6203 bearings and if sourced from SKF. They have a maximum permissible speed of 19 000 rpm. The tensioner have a pair of 6203 bearings from NSK and it I haven't been able to find data for exactly that spec (6203DUL18), but they are essentially limited to 18 000, or 19 000 rpm. The two other block located Toyota sheet steel idlers, which have one KOYO 6302 bearing each, seems to be limited to 17 000 (Not 100 % sure). That is fine, but they are specified with the tightest tolerance, which in turn generate more heat.

So, when I took all idlers off the engine and inspected them, what I found was:

• Tensioner = OK
• Block idlers (70 mm) = Grease leakage and excessive play
• Block-Head idlers (50 mm) = Grease totally cooked and completely dry bearings. The smaller 6203's were close to complete breakdown. Noisy and cogging.
• Head-idlers (60 / 52.5 mm) = Started to detoriate, but seems fine.

I had a long discussion with SKF's application expert and essentially it boiled down to:

• Fixed inner ring and rotating outer ring is always the most severe case and may call for a lower speed rating
• Given the condition of the 6203's, his recommendation was to go up from CN to C3 tolerance. This is not 100 % sure it will help, but won't hurt and may help.
• Given cooked grease, where standard grease is specified to 120 C, a higher spec grease is the way to go
• A hybrid bearing with ceramic balls, has a better "grease management", which may be essential in this case

So, the Elise parts idler pulleys mentioned in a previous post, is equipped with a SKF hybrid bearing, with a polyamid ball carrier and 160 C grease. Couldn't be better. Just from the bearings, it is a no-brainer to buy them.

For the 50 mm idlers, it would be spot on to buy the same high spec hybrid bearings (-2RSLTN9/HC5C3WT), but off the shelf they are around 200 $/€ each (times 4!), which is kind of brutal.

I had quite a few other non-pleasant expenses related to the powertrain, so I went for the second best off the shelf option, the -2RSLTN9/C3VT162 spec. They are around/below 15 $/€ each and are also specified with the polyamid ball carrier, the looser C3 clearance, the same seals, but with steel balls and a 150 C rated grease. If you read the catalogue, you can come up with a better spec for this particular application, but if you stick with off the shelf combinations of possible components, you end up with these two as the top alternatives. The SKF application expert agreed with this conclusion.

Besides this, I also went with JUBU Performance block idlers/tensioner, which have gone a different route with a much bigger bearing (SKF 62/28-2), so the actual load vs max load is much lower. Obviously proven in racing and winning Pikes Peak, in its class, so I suppose it was a good choice.

Finally, I am also curious about the correct torque, but tried with 43 Nm as all other M10's in the belt circuit and the bearings are fine with this. At least they feel so 😬

 

[Joe1973]

Thanks Tweetdriver for reviving this post. I've only had my '14 Evora S for 4 months and now will be cautious about any squealing noise from belt/pulleys. Usually frequent drives and gentle acceleration (vs. sudden stomping) helps prolong these parts though admittedly we know failure are mostly random events. To think belts and tensioners are few mins jobs for standard engines, with these Evoras it entails 10hrs labor! 🤢

 

[Serebo1]

Well, the bracket is just 4 pulleys with 8 total bearings... If it's the upper ones they can remove and replace without doing anything more than pulling the tensioner back.(easy job through the wheel well) Should be a hour job to do. If they find zero damage, then the bracket needs to come out to get to the lower ones... This means the motor must be tilted. You do not need to remove the clam. Most important is having a competent mechanic to look the pulleys and bearings over as the reason they are advising to replace the entire assy. is the bearings are not the problem... it's the machining of the bracket.

You can go down the new bracket route... but having seen 2 of these things and the VERY POOR machining, you can toss 2k at you car every 2 years or overhaul the bearings and fuse/loctite 660 them and be done. All this for about $300 in materials.

There is a shop in Minnesota that will overhaul your pulleys for something like $75 ea.

In my case, it was the lower most rear pulley that had it's outer race spun in the pulley (poor pulley machining). New bearing and Loctite 660 and better then new. Other methods you could use would be to strike or fuse the race.

So, looks like it's my lower pulleys on the bracket assembly. Just to be clear, are you saying that the lower pulleys can be replaced without purchasing a new bracket assembly? And further, that the shot pulley can be overhauled and improved?

ETA: got it - looking to Elise-parts for replacements. Unless anyone has a better solution. Thanks

 

[friss]

So, looks like it's my lower pulleys on the bracket assembly. Just to be clear, are you saying that the lower pulleys can be replaced without purchasing a new bracket assembly? And further, that the shot pulley can be overhauled and improved?

ETA: got it - looking to Elise-parts for replacements. Unless anyone has a better solution. Thanks

I believe @Grady did a self overhaul of the pulleys.

The upper pulleys are available via EliseParts but I believe the lower ones you'd have to get from Lotus. (At least that is what I ended up doing when I last did an overhaul)

 

[Serebo1]

I believe @Grady did a self overhaul of the pulleys.

The upper pulleys are available via EliseParts but I believe the lower ones you'd have to get from Lotus. (At least that is what I ended up doing when I last did an overhaul)

Thanks @friss - I may hav e misread but I was under the impression that the lower pulleys came from EliseParts. Lotus has told my shop that they will not supply the lower pulleys (#16) separate from the bracket.

 

[friss]

Thanks @friss - I may hav e misread but I was under the impression that the lower pulleys came from EliseParts. Lotus has told my shop that they will not supply the lower pulleys (#16) separate from the bracket.

Thats unfortunate if Lotus has changed their policy. I ordered 2 A132E6513S (16) from Gator last august and got them without having to order the full bracket. Otherwise EliseParts only has replacements for 17 & 18.

 

[Grady]

It is easy to just to replace the bearings. They are not super critical fit so all you need is an oven and a freezer. When installing only press or drive on the outer race, you do not want to dent the races it will shorten their life. Here is the page where I listed the part numbers of the bearings. Not a long test yet but have a couple thousand miles on them now squeak free.

https://www.lotustalk.com/threads/my-evora-s-project.485472/page-5

 

[Serebo1]

Thats unfortunate if Lotus has changed their policy. I ordered 2 A132E6513S (16) from Gator last august and got them without having to order the full bracket. Otherwise EliseParts only has replacements for 17 & 18.

Yup. They 100% will not supply separately. Wait... just checked Gator online and they WILL sell them... for $214.64 a piece!!! And my shop is saying there are none to be had in the US. WOW. So yeah, I think - unless anyone knows the corresponding Toyota part #, we're just going to do as @Grady says and replace the bearings IF the pulleys aren't further damaged. Grady, any reason you went with Koyo over the KRS?

So yeah, does anyone know the corresponding 50mm pulley Toyota part #?

 

[Serebo1]

The lower pulleys are Toyota parts.

If you are talking about the lower 50mm pulleys on the assembly bracket, would you happen to have the part # please?

 

[Grady]

Grady, any reason you went with Koyo over the KRS?

What I found, no particular reason. Just did not want a no name bearing. I think these were a tighter spec than what you should use but I am not in a cold climate and do not go to high RPM unless the engine is completely warm.