as a few of you know a week ago my supercharger started making a horrible sound when above 3000 rpms. i automatically thought it was bearing failure after reading the numerous threads that have been posted. so i was finally able to disassemble my supercharger today and I found two things that concern me. 1) the woodruff key between the shaft and the compressor has been severely worn down to the point where there is quite a bit of play. 2) one of the bearings on the pulley end is making quite a bit more noise than the one next to it. after taking it apart these are the only two things i could find wrong with the supercharger so in your guys' opinion, do you think this would be enough to be making all that noise?

the video of the shaft and the bearing noise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIHMr9xVe94

here are some pictures of it disassembled with destroyed woodruff key

 

One of the reasons I included a new woodruff keys with all my shafts. Your bearings are dead, i'm willing to bet your shaft is dead too. Those bearings are supposed to spin freely. All these s/c's crapping out right when I run out of shafts. If you guys all get together and decide to buy shafts you might be in luck, i'm talking with the machine shop soon to see if i can get a quick run of shafts made. I'll keep everyone updated.

 

please do. right now i am borrowing an expedition and i'm about to go broke from filling up the tank. so does it sound to you like just the one is damaged?

 

No both bearings are shot, you might be able to get away with putting new bearings on the old shaft, glueing them in, and jbwelding a new woodruff key in place. I'm not sure how long it will take me to make more shafts. Main problem is that i had a 20 shaft miniumum order that I could make with the shop. If i can get that down to 10 then I should have some shafts pretty soon.

 

i know the NTN 6205 LL BC3 are the bearings everyone is replacing the oem with but i am having a hard time finding them online. do you have a link to order them or can i get them from you

 

After rebuilding mine, I found a few things, the OEM woodruff key if crap, if the shaft it is not installed properly, aligned I should say when putting back in the car, it will wear out the shaft bearings improperly. Also, they way TRD designed this thing with that springs washer inside the shaft bearing assembly is just wrong, mine got f'up when I installed the shaft into the housing, I started to tighten everything up and for some reason the shaft was too hard to spin by hand, since it was my first time doing this I figured it was normal and would loosen up over time, was I wrong, a day and a half later the shaft bearings started making a weird wine sound along with this thing, pic below:

It was loose, I took a piece of wood to the top of it and hit with a hammer, then I decided to add some JBWeld to it, that did the trick. Luckily I had another shaft and bearings from gompka, but this time when I put it I decided to keep the little spring washer out, added some loctite from here: https://www.rshughes.com/products/079340_68005.html , I ordered 3, two for the inside of the shaft housing and one to add to the top/outer race of the shaft bearings, then I put everything back together and it spun by hand nice and freely, I now have about 2K miles on this set-up and no problems(knock on wood lol). So if there's any kind of pressure on either side of the bearings, which using that spring washer will, it will put stress on the bearings and they will wear out wrong and faster. If anybody decides to try what I did, I would suggest to test it out first, put some grease inside the shaft housing and put the shaft inside, if there's no side to side movement, then you're good, if there is you need to find a way to stop it from doing that, mine did not move from side to side, it fit nice and snug and the loctite is holding it in place instead of that spring washer. Try it at your own risk thou and good luck.

 

thanks for the heads up. this will defiantly come in handy when i put mine back together

 

^^^^no problem, just trying to share my experiences so that no one else has to.

 

found out a few days ago one of the 2 spots the aluminum bracket mounts the s/c compressor to the engine has a crack. making this the second mount broken i bet with both of these breaking there was so much movement throughout the unit it caused my bearings to give out.

i got a stock belt in the hopes that i could drive my car with the s/c - the shaft side but i dont have the stock intake and just cant find a way to make my WeaponR s/c intake fit w/o the hood up (anyone have their stock they want to sell or give me for free)

also out with the old and in with the new NTN 6205 LL BC3, they should be here next week. i finally found a shop with the correct bearing press fittings to remove the damaged shaft bearings. looks like the stock shaft is still in perfect condition.

 

i wanted to wait a few days before i posted that my sc is up and running strong again! it took awhile with working so much but was relatively inexpensive to fix with all the problems i had. i got both aluminum brackets welded and reinforced ($53 for transmission $43 for engine) replaced both shaft bearings ($16 each) and 3 1 1/4" woodruff keys ($1.25 each) with labor of bearing press at my new favorite shop ($43 to remove old and put on new) they even threw in some red loctite. the total = $174.75... tC up and running again = priceless

*not including any tools i had a good excuse to get

all in all not bad considering dealership wanted to charge me $250 for just one of my brackets

 

Hope that bracket holds up for you, good job thou....

 

the problem though is that you replaced sucky bearings with more sucky bearings, and you replaced a sucky woodruff key with another sucky woodruff key. All bearings are not the same thats why the ones i used are $40 a piece and thats why i used hardened steel woodruff keys. I hope it holds up for you, but what you should have done is put in a few more bucks to do it right. Did you do a grease fitting? Cause if you didn't i can't say enough how much i recommend everyone does one, ask GWTC, you can hear a difference just by using the grease fitting.

 

thanks, me too

 

i hope i didnt get sucky bearings i put on NTN 6205 LL BC3, the ones you told me to get and the woodruff key im sure is cheap and not hardened just a quick replacement from ace hardware. yes i did put on a grease fitting, when i put everything back together i ran my car for a few minutes to see if i could hear a difference before and after adding the grease and it didnt sound any different to me.

my car at idle is making a bit more noise than it used to even after its up to running temp, but after 2k rpm it sounds perfectly normal. do these bearings just tend make more noise or should i be worried?

when i put this back together i only saw this as a temporary solution to last me for a couple of months until i can get the shaft that you are having made + hardened woodruff keys + ceramic bearings from kiki.
im just happy im able to drive my tc again