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Quick question: 94 3.4 DOHC idler pulley


GnatGoSplat

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I guess nobody knows, so I had to figure it out the hard way. I pulled the idler arm off and looked at the back. It's normal threaded and was a bitch to get loosened.

 

Then because I don't trust tow truck guys, I got under the car and saw he bent the rear control arm bars on both sides, they're now touching the spring and one is creased. SHIT! After fixing the idler and getting pissed about the fucked up suspension, I opened the PDA I bought from eBay to discover it's missing parts and DOA. When it rains, it pours.

 

Just gotta remind myself if I'm still breathing, things aren't that bad... of course, the night's not over yet...

 

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I guess nobody knows, so I had to figure it out the hard way. I pulled the idler arm off and looked at the back. It's normal threaded and was a bitch to get loosened.

 

Then because I don't trust tow truck guys, I got under the car and saw he bent the rear control arm bars on both sides, they're now touching the spring and one is creased. SHIT! After fixing the idler and getting pissed about the fucked up suspension, I opened the PDA I bought from eBay to discover it's missing parts and DOA. When it rains, it pours.

 

Just gotta remind myself if I'm still breathing, things aren't that bad... of course, the night's not over yet...

 

 

Shit man, I would be on the horn so quick.....

 

Anyways. Since when do 3.4's have idlers? You mean the tensioner pulley? I would just replace the tensioner if thats the case.

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Anyways. Since when do 3.4's have idlers?

 

Since forever. 2 of them to be exact.

 

Shawn, for what its worth. If you need new idler pulley bolts, get them NOW. They are discontinued, and the only ones left are backstock.

 

My tensioner or a idler pulley failed recently, and I had to have my car towed home, i watched the tow truck driver like a hawk, and was rather impressed that he knew how to load the car without damaging my rear suspension.

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Yeah, by idler I meant tensioner pulley (O'Reillys lists it under idler). I just replaced the pulley itself so it should be fine now. I reused the old bolt.

 

I was pretty pissed and geared up to call the towing company, but I got under the car and took another look. They're bent on both sides, but only one side is newly bent with the dirt scraped off to prove it. The other side has apparently been bent forever with no sign of having been disturbed for years. I can't believe I never noticed it before, but it must have been that way since I bought it over 4yrs ago. My wife said she knows these people will be argumentative and not believe me because they're big rednecks. She said they're your typical "junkyard guys" with no customer service skills, thick accents, and a really poor grasp of English. I've dealt with guys like that before, and they're really difficult to deal with. They'll probably say it was already like that since both sides are like that, or try to convince me it's normal, "see, the other side looks the same". Since the one was already bad and the labor to replace two vs. one is probably not that different, coupled with the fact that neither my wife nor I are very confrontational, we decided to bend over and take it. Now if this were a larger, more professional outfit like a huge dealership where you go through a service manager, I would definitely complain (and I have in the past), but those places are considerably more customer-oriented. I'm just not ready for a fight. Every time I have to fight, I lose.

 

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Yeah, by idler I meant tensioner pulley (O'Reillys lists it under idler). I just replaced the pulley itself so it should be fine now. I reused the old bolt.

 

I was pretty pissed and geared up to call the towing company, but I got under the car and took another look. They're bent on both sides, but only one side is newly bent with the dirt scraped off to prove it. The other side has apparently been bent forever with no sign of having been disturbed for years. I can't believe I never noticed it before, but it must have been that way since I bought it over 4yrs ago. My wife said she knows these people will be argumentative and not believe me because they're big rednecks. She said they're your typical "junkyard guys" with no customer service skills, thick accents, and a really poor grasp of English. I've dealt with guys like that before, and they're really difficult to deal with. They'll probably say it was already like that since both sides are like that, or try to convince me it's normal, "see, the other side looks the same". Since the one was already bad and the labor to replace two vs. one is probably not that different, coupled with the fact that neither my wife nor I are very confrontational, we decided to bend over and take it. Now if this were a larger, more professional outfit like a huge dealership where you go through a service manager, I would definitely complain (and I have in the past), but those places are considerably more customer-oriented. I'm just not ready for a fight. Every time I have to fight, I lose.

 

 

Fuck it I would just take them to small claims at this point.

 

Anyways. Since when do 3.4's have idlers?

 

Since forever. 2 of them to be exact.

 

Shawn, for what its worth. If you need new idler pulley bolts, get them NOW. They are discontinued, and the only ones left are backstock.

 

My tensioner or a idler pulley failed recently, and I had to have my car towed home, i watched the tow truck driver like a hawk, and was rather impressed that he knew how to load the car without damaging my rear suspension.

 

I figured he was talking about the tensioner, and not the Tbelt.

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What luck! I guess we can't ignore it. My wife was upset to tears today, the car makes godawful noises when it's driven, LOUD noises. It's probably the bent link rubbing against the spring. I guess it's bent worse than I could tell by just looking at it.

 

We're going to give them a double assault. She's going to complain about it when she gets home, and she'll let me know how it goes. After they blow her off, it's my turn to chew them out. If they blow me off, I'm going to call my good friend's dad (attorney) for advice.

 

Yay, I can't wait! My stomach always hurts like hell when I have to call to complain about something.

 

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What luck! I guess we can't ignore it. My wife was upset to tears today, the car makes godawful noises when it's driven, LOUD noises. It's probably the bent link rubbing against the spring. I guess it's bent worse than I could tell by just looking at it.

 

We're going to give them a double assault. She's going to complain about it when she gets home, and she'll let me know how it goes. After they blow her off, it's my turn to chew them out. If they blow me off, I'm going to call my good friend's dad (attorney) for advice.

 

Yay, I can't wait! My stomach always hurts like hell when I have to call to complain about something.

 

 

Yeah, I feel the same way, but I mean honestly there in the wrong.

 

Anyways take em to small claims court!

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Shawn, which lateral arms are bent on each side? Front or rear? I'm heading to a pull-a-part yard soon and could probably find you some in good shape(the fronts need to be 91-96 and the rears need to be from a 94-96 car according to my service manual.) if you don't have anywhere to get them locally. New ones are $55/each from GMPartsdirect fwiw. I just emailed one of the pullapart yards to see what they charge as they don't list these on their site, probably no more than $8-10/each for them or possibly less I would imagine. I actually might visit both yards, between the two of them, there should be 50-60 W-bodies in those years ranges to pull them from.

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It's the front arms on the rear axle. They're both bent, but this towing company only bent the one and the other was apparently like that before. The guy never made it over to look at the car, so we have to bring it to them. We're heading out during lunch unless it rains, then we'll do it tomorrow or Monday, whichever day it doesn't rain.

 

Matt, thanks for the offer. Let me know what you find out.

 

Don't Gen 2 parts work? I've heard they're better, stronger, and will fit. Didn't GMPP also have an upgrade kit with even beefier parts? Maybe I'm thinking of the trailing arms...

 

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Well, the guy that works there said he'll fix it. He's willing to fix both sides even though they only bent the one side. Apparently, he doesn't want to go through insurance because he wants to use salvage parts and have his friend down the street fix it (this tow truck company also happens to be a salvage yard). The wife said "okay" before I could get a word out, although she regrets it now because later I told her anytime I've ever had anyone else do any work on the car, it's always been done poorly and caused problems with something else. I was going to suggest the dealer in the hopes that he'd just give us the cash and I'd fix it myself, pocketing the rest and possibly using GMPP upgraded parts.

 

Oh well, I guess if they'll fix it at all I shouldn't complain, I just worry something else will get screwed up that we have to complain about because that ALWAYS happens when I don't do it myself.

 

I don't have the service manual here at work, does anyone know if the fuel tank needs to be dropped to get the front links off? I assume it'll need an alignment too, the guy never mentioned that part and I wasn't thinking clearly enough to mention it myself.

 

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Well, the place is a junkyard, I could always ask if he'll substitute 97+ links.

 

My only concern is although some people say they are exactly the same length, some other people have said they're slightly longer. The 97 fronts are adjustable which we probably wouldn't want because it would need alignment afterwards. IF the 97 rears are exactly the same length as the 94's (which I think all 4 are the same?) then it should be possible to use them on the front. If they're off even a tiny bit in length, we'd be stuck needing an alignment again though.

 

I don't want to pay for an alignment, and I'm pretty sure the towing company doesn't either. I looked it up and no alignment necessary if the fronts are replaced. The cammed bolts are just in the rear which makes sense. I guess it really doesn't matter since I doubt there'd be any improvement in handling.

 

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Well, the place is a junkyard, I could always ask if he'll substitute 97+ links.

 

My only concern is although some people say they are exactly the same length, some other people have said they're slightly longer. The 97 fronts are adjustable which we probably wouldn't want because it would need alignment afterwards. IF the 97 rears are exactly the same length as the 94's (which I think all 4 are the same?) then it should be possible to use them on the front. If they're off even a tiny bit in length, we'd be stuck needing an alignment again though.

 

I don't want to pay for an alignment, and I'm pretty sure the towing company doesn't either. I looked it up and no alignment necessary if the fronts are replaced. The cammed bolts are just in the rear which makes sense. I guess it really doesn't matter since I doubt there'd be any improvement in handling.

 

 

Well, I know the later ones got the adjustment. Later 2nd gens got all 4 adjustable.

 

You know I would say junkyard parts aren't good enough.

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you need to get all this in writing, that way if he messes it up, you can take him to court. playin 'he said she said' in court gets you know where. there's no way of knowing if you are gonna get screwed over even further, so its best to cover your butt.

 

BTW the GMPP kit has just trailing arms, sways and stb.

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My only concern is although some people say they are exactly the same length, some other people have said they're slightly longer.

 

Shawn, I have measured them before, but my measurements were very *crude.* TimG has the BMR aftermarket arms on his '95(?) Monte Carlo, so I'm almost certain the 97+ factory bars are a direct replacement for ours as long as you get an alignment afterwards.

 

My measurements...

1994: Front arms - 24.5'' long, Rear arms - 25.75'' long.

2001: Front arms - 24.25'' long, Rear arms -25.5'' long.

 

As I said above, those were crude measurements, it's possible that one set of those could be .25'' inches off and that the bars were the same exact length. I remember one set of bars were harder to get a measurement on than the others.

 

EDIT: I just got an email back from the yard and they want "$14.14" for each lateral arm.

 

BTW, my 1990 service manual says that you need to lower the gas tank a little bit to remove the front arms.

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Matt, thanks for looking into it.

It's already done, two "new" junkyard front bars. It looks like they did a decent job as nothing really stood out as having been done wrong when I peeked under it.

 

I didn't realize the front and rear bars were different lengths. Hopefully they replaced them with the correct fronts! The 97+ being just 1/4" different would have worked fine with an alignment. Not really worth it on this car since it's the wife's car and I doubt better bars would make any difference in normal driving conditions.

 

To top off an already wonderful week, she got pulled over on the way home because the brake lights don't always work (flakey turn signal switch). :lol:

 

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