Wobble/Growling noise behind timing cover

[Josh Schupp]

Quick background: Back in August, I tried to do the timing belt on my 2006 tiburon gt V6 myself and bent valves after rotating the engine over by hand while it was out of time. I replaced the water pump, all of the serp belt pulleys, timing belt pulleys and tensioner, and installed the Gates timing belt kit. I ended up spending $3k at Hyundai for bent valves after I found no compression in number 3 cylinder. They did a complete gasket kit and replaced 10 valves. After getting the car back, for a couple weeks the engine would tick up near the valve train for a few minutes after startup. Took it back to hyundai for that issue, they could not recreate the issue. After awhile THAT issue went away. Shortly after that I started to hear a growling/wobbling noise coming from that side of the engine. After many diagnostic processes (running the engine with the serp belt off, probing different areas with a steth. etc.) myself and other technicians determined that the noise is coming from behind the timing belt cover. I even replaced the serp tensioner and harmonic balancer/crank pulley. I’m going to have to take it back to hyundai to have it looked at because I don’t want to remove the timing cover myself to check it out.

Has anyone ever had this happen to them or know what it could be?

Video of the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWF4OFgoco0

Topic

[Glenn]

I believe the timing belt is tensioned with a grenade type hydraulic tensioner held in place with 2 bolts on this make. Perhaps the tensioner bolts were not properly tightened or have worked loose? Sounds like a good bit of work to dig in and have a look… Best of luck

[Author]

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