Crankshaft pulley, Strange smell and no coolant fan
 

A couple weeks back my wife was driving the 75 CDTi Auto (since Christmas she had been using the 75 as a daily driver rather than the Zafira which I was going to attempt to change the inlet manifold on, and have off the road for a few days)
when she noticed a strange smell in the cabin.
I was asked to come and check the car, she had parked at our daughters dancing lesson ,and didn't want to drive any further.

I started it up and couldn't smell anything unusual, I had a good look around the engine bay but couldn't see anything. My daughter then told me that it happened when the aircon was on with front window demist. I put the AC but still couldn't smell anything and drove home without any problems.

We carried on using the car as normal for about a week, and I did notice a strange smell when the AC was on a couple days later, the smell was almost like a burning rubber or electrical smell. Then last week my wife came home from work and said she had a charge fault warning light and the power steering became stiff and heavy momentarily, "the steering just went" were her exact words.

I started it and looked under the bonnet. When I put on the AC the fan didn't start up. I took it for a drive at this point still no fan but the air was blowing cold when set to low. After going round the streets a couple times when I returned home the fan was running.

On Tuesday I started it up again to move it nearer to outside our house. The fan didn't work when the ac was switched on and I could smell something in the area around below the power steering pump. I didn't go any further and switched it off. I've been so busy with work these last couple weeks and haven't had time to investigate, though I'm hoping to this weekend especially as the weather is picking up a bit.

Any ideas? I've read on here the alternator brushes can smell when wearing out :shrug:, or could it be the AC compressor :eek:

A key point for me would be the steering going stiff and heavy and the charge light coming on which suggests that the pump and the alternator stopped turning which points to the auxiliary drive belt not turning.
Now if this happened in conjunction with the AC being switched on the compressor puts a load on to the crank pulley which if the rubber bonding to the centre is failing you will get a burning smell, in conjunction with the pulley stopping.

I have had a crank pulley fail without warning where the crankshaft was turning without the pulley hence the burning smell and no pwr steering or charging.

I also recently had an alternator pulley bearing fail that stopped the aux belt completely but that came with a few miles of noisy warning.

I would suggest running the engine at idle with AC off and watch the aux belt then switch on AC and see if the belt rotation falters as well as AC try turning the steering lock to lock which will add more load to the crank pulley.

If all seems well I would switch off and check the tension on the aux belt, perhaps the tensioner is failing which is causing the belt to slip thus intermittently stopping the steering pump and alternator again you would get a smell from belt slipping.

Hope that helps, good luck.

If I'm back from work in time today I'll get underneath and have the undertray off for a good look. It's not so easy to tell from the top. I put a new belt on about 15 months ago when I changed the power steering pump.

https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/7e...scnq0rk26g.jpg
Usually accompanied by low revs clattering.


TC

Sounds like bottom pulley as others have said exact same thing happened to me last year

Weather has been miserable not been able to get under car today. Just been reading up on crankshaft pulley, sounds like its hard work to undo the bolt.

It can be, you'll ideally need a 3/4" Socket with a long bar for the pulley nut and have means for locking the crank. For me it was harder to tighten it up to the correct torque than loosening.
I replaced my pulley again last year and I got my local garage to do it they seemed quite familiar with the job. They said that they locked the crank with a tool for locking the flywheel via the starter aperture (probably a flat sided screwdriver!). I made life easier by removing the undertray and inner wing liner.

Can't remember exact labour cost but it wasn't a lot, biggest item was cost of pulley which because I had gone via garage cost me full retail at c£180. If possible you should buy/specify Corteco brand, cheaper one's don't last. If you are doing the job yourself you should be able to pick one up for about £125 if you shop around.

A few days ago that appened to mine...
see my pulley lol

Rubber everywhere...
 

Good weather, day off work, Rover jacked up.
Got the lining and under-tray off. The undertray was covered with fragments of shredded rubber. There was more around the crankshaft pulley but no obvious signs of anything falling apart.


When i started the engine, there did appear to be a little irregular wobble to the crankshaft pulley as it spun round.

I asked my wife to sit in and rev it up, suddenly (it must be her:shrug:) the other pulleys stopped turning intermittently. I managed to get a video. need to work out how to show it:shrug:

crankshaft and belt video
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QRffimgaqI

Stuck the video on YouTube, first 15 seconds show fault.
Then it shows ac switching on and off after.