All you cossies owners...Some good advice !

***** CHECK YOUR CRANK PULLEY IS CORRECTLY FITTED AND TIGHTEND UP ****

Over the last few years, because of my pulley being loose, it has caused loss of performance and the destruction of my crankshaft.

Basically, the loose pulley has caused the wearing out of the woodruff key and the hole in the crank it goes into is soooo big now, the pulley is no longer a snug fit and is loose.
I have been told the woodruff key is only used to locate the pulley but no matter how tight the bolt is, over time the pulley moves.

The result is the pulley is no longer in the correct place and the result is retarded ignition (22 degrees) and loss of power.
This has been a gradual thing as the pulley over time has rotated on the crank shaft so was not noticable straightaway.
Initially this was not a problem as I reprogrammed an ignition offset in the ecu to compensate for this and the performance of the engine was restored.

Well the other day, was driving home and the cars starts miss firing very badly.
Luckily, I had my laptop with me and plugged it into the ECU to read out the problem.
Straight away, I found out it was a crank sensor fault, so I lifted the bonnet to have a look and all was ok.
By pure chance while under the car, I grabbed the pulley and to my surprise it was very loose.
So loose in fact, the pulley was moving away from the crank sensor so causing the missfire.
When I got the car home, I thought i just needed to tighten the pulley clamp bolt up.
When I tried to tighten it up I found it was already tight.
The pulley has worn so much (being only mild steel) it has worn out the internal hole and also the clamping surfaces too.
The result, the pulley is a write off.

Not finished yet .....

Anyway, I managed to obtain a brand new pulley and fitted this.
This was surely the answer to my problems......NOPE
The new pulley along with its factory powder coating was causing the drive belt to squeal. (new belt fitted)
Took the pulley off, and had it sand blasted to remove the coating and this problem was sorted.

Still not finished......
Drove the car again last week and the car felt flat again so I checked the pulley once more only to find it loose once more.
It turns out, the old pulley, although is made of mild steel has also worn the end of the crankshaft.

The woodruff key hole in the crank is now 12 mm wide (should be about 5mm).
The end of the crank shaft if now a tappered shape.. I.E it is smaller at the front by 2mm diameter

Well now my options are ...

1) Bodge it once more and wait for it to get worse.
2) Custom pulley made to fit - engine out - would need to remove old crank to get it balanced with new custom pulley.
3) Fit a new crank - engine out.

I have chosen the new crank route. May aswell as the engine has to come out for the best 2 options.

While its out, may aswell do some mods too

Fookin cars - yet again.