I swear this engine I'm dealing with is just cursed to not run right. I only get to drive this thing 50-100 miles at a time before something else breaks.

Anyway, the latest problem I've come across is the fan pulley rubbing against the harmonic balancer. I've never seen this happen in any of the M103s I've owned before. After I replaced the belt and sanded down the fan pulley due to some noises I heard, I drove the car to work today and on the way home I started hearing some scratching noises coming from the engine. When I parked the car in the garage I saw this:



The harmonic balancer is making contact with the fan pulley. I also noticed that the edge of my belt is not lined up with the inside of the fan pulley, like the fan pulley stretched out over the weekend while I was driving or something:



I ran the engine while watching this little area and both the harmonic balancer and fan pulley look to be spinning true, nothing is bent out of shape, but they are interfering with each other.

The harmonic balancer lines up with the front crank position sensor like this illustration for the M104. So I don't think the harmonic balancer is falling off the hub.


The fan clutch bearing bracket is brand new and has seen less than 500 miles so I don't really think it's the bearing. I remember checking last Saturday when I replaced the belt and sanded down the fan pulley to remove glazing from the flat surface.

Any ideas for reasons why this is happening before I go blindly replacing the pulley?

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