1987 260E Fan Pulley Touching the Metal Frame ?
 

My 1987 260E started making some grinding noise and metal flakes were all over the front area of the engine. I looked at the fan pulley carefully and its surface away from the radiator (towards the engine) has become shiny indicating that it is contacting some metal frame. Also the fan blade is toughing the tensioner pulley and some other metal part towards the bottom. It appears that the whole belt/pulley system has gone out of alignment. What may be the problem ? Could there be a problem with the belt tensioner mechanism, I am not sure how it would make the fan pulley go out of alignment. Apparently, I could push the fan clutch and or the pulley towards the engine and by doing this there appears to be a descent gap between the fan pulley and the metal frame BUT the clutch/fan pulley dont stay back and they bounce right back and become misaligned. Like the belt is doing something to cause the problem. Or is there a problem with the fan clutch or its frame, though I dont know what and how this can happen. The fan turns just fine.

Thanks !!

Most likely your fan pulley bearing is gone. It will stay in place for some time after the bearing starts falling apart, not very long. Fix it as soon as possible, it will fail completely after some time leaving you stranded and it may destroy your radiator and other parts.

Rob

very strong ditto.

I just pulled the belt out and it does look like the fan clutch/pulley have a large wobble and a permanent misalignment. The rest of the pulleys appear fine, including the tensioner.

The question I have now is whether the bearing can be replaced as a standalone component or do I have to replace the whole fan clutch bracket/pulley ?

Thanks

the part you need is called a fan bearing bracket.it bolts onto the front of the engine.there are a couple of tricky bolts to watch out for but you can see them.part # 103 200 17 28

Finally replaced the fan clutch pulley bearing bracket. The replacement of the bearing was not a big deal BUT the battle with putting the belt back on was a big one. I think the belt tensioner stopped working when I took the belt out, I am not sure what happened, but had to remove the alternator to get the belt out. I tried a lot to make the tensioner work but it just would not loosen or tighten. There was no way in the world I was going to replace the tensioner because this meant I had to undo all that I just did. So, what I found is that I could keep the lower bold on the alternator on, and remove the upper bolt and push the alternator in. Then I tried a whole bunch of belt sizes and the one that worked was 6PK2325 (though a better one would be 6PK2320, nobody has this in stock, only Bando seem to make it). I put the belt around and pulled the alternator back in place, and this is how I managed to get my belt on. This size of belt is substantially longer than the original belt, but it seems to be tight enough, the alternator is making about 12.5V. Because I needed such a long belt, the tensioner is failed in a way that it is extremely on the tight side. The tensioner adjustment rod is very loose, it was not like this before. Oh well, atleast the car is running. But now the blower motor or its controller has died, so another job is waiting in the pipe. I think I also need to replace fuel filter at some point.