no cel light comes on, when i turn the ac on it makes a loud *** noise so i keep it off.

ive driven the car hard for hours and it performs well the whole time, nothing at all feels out of place. that little noise is there when the car idles only now and its just random. no patters -_-.

gonna take the belts off of everything just to make sure.

 

Ok doesnt seem to be my AC making the noise. Its making a loud grinding noise only on a cold start, and i can see, while this noise is going on, the large pulley on the bottom end of the engine is wobbling. It is the pulley that is large with a smaller pulley attached to the side of it. Will take a video in a second.

 

That's the crankshaft pulley. You'll need to remove it to identify the problem.

 

bum out... its my daily driver. Could anyone give me a rough estimate how long it would take to get off/inspect? Got work 5AM tomorrow :O

 

See if you can wobble it by hand (best reached by jacking up the car and taking the left front tire off). If so you really should not drive any because it's about to fall off, and then things could get real expensive.

 

okay, the car is jacked up and i went to see if pulley would shake by hand and it wouldn't budge. Now, to get to it to take it off, do i go through the left wheel weld?

 

just to check before i mess with what i think is my crankshaft pulley messing up, how do i loosen enough to get the ac compressor, or V belt, off.

 

Don't try to take the crank pulley off yet. To remove A/C belt, loosen (do not remove) the nut on the small pulley that the belt goes over between the engine and compressor (idler pulley). Then look from the top, there is a long bolt that goes down to the axle for the idler pulley. Turn this bolt counterclockwise and the small pulley will move down and loosen the belt. Tighten the nut on the idler pulley after the belt is off. To get the belt completely out of the car, you would need to remove the motor mount. But you can just let it hang there instead.

 

sweet, thanks. will try this at work tomorrow. its already dark here. You wouldnt happen to know the bolt sizes?

 

Should be a 14mm for the idler nut. You will need an end wrench as there isn't room to get a socket in. The jack screw is 10mm best done with a 1/4 inch drive socket and a long extension. If you can't get to the jack screw-- since you're just trying to get the belt off you can completely remove the idler instead. Keep track of all the washers and spacers on the shaft.