Just thought i'd post it up.

I've had two in the last 12 months, the owners both complained of a 'belt squeal' and the engine miss fired while the 'squeal' was there.
One car was a TE50 with 120 000km the second was an XR8 ute with 190 000km.

Both turned out to be massive wear in the sync sensor body, this caused the shaft to chatter in it bore. The squealing noise was shaft chatter. and miss fire was the sync sensor not giving the correct signal.

By the looks of things the cause is firstly a poor design with the shaft running straight on the alloy body with NO bearing.
Secondly the design does not provide much oil to the shaft.

I'll try and get some photos up next week.

hmmmmmmmmm,interesting

Yep common problem on AUs. I replaced one on the father-in-law's Fairlane, easy peasy job.

ANY PHOTOS,got me interested in this one

Yep, as Banarcus said, common problem on the AU 5.0's. Have done two of my mates ones from this problem.

pulled the it apart today, and i retract my previous statement about the shaft running straight on the alloy. There is a bronze bush in the top that is about 25mm long. It was dry and scuffed, the shaft was worn at the bush area. There is not support for the shaft at the bottom of the housing.

I'm going to find out if there is a proper bearing that will fit the shaft and be able to be made to fit int he housing with a little machining. if this is the case i should be able to have them machined to take a bearing at the top and bottom of the housing. Even with machining and and the two bearings, it has to work out cheaper then buying new ones. (i can't get them for under $800 up here)

Yeah the ones i've done, when you pull the top cap off theres alot of fine red dust in there from the bush wearing away. Good way to tell if its on its way out.

you can get them from rockford online for about $100ish

The "bottom bearing" is actually the cylinder block where the shaft locates in the block (just below the cam gear). If you add another bearing to the CPS housing, it will only make lubrication for the top bearing worse.

what lubrication?the bearing is running dry,hence the red dust.a sinterlite bearing as used in starter motor housings may be better,after soaking in oil and installed.any splashed oil in the area can be used,if you drill a hole in the body to catch it.

There is NO lubrication to the only bearing IN the housing. That is the problem. By fitting a sealed bearing at the top it completely eliminates the need for oil lubrication. There are many thousands of distributors in all types of engines that use a sealed ball bearing and see hundreds of thousands KM with out issue.

To further increase durability, you could fit a second sealed bearing in the bottom of the housing.
you then remove the inner seal from each bearing and pack the housing with grease before refitting the shaft.
I have done it with the sealed bearings on an idler pulley shaft in commercial mower my old man used to have, it wouldn't go 3 months with out collapsing a bearing with stock fully sealed setup. When i removed the seals and packed the housing with grease it went on to last 2 years still going when it was sold. ( this thing used to clock up 30 - 40 hours a week)

If i can find a way to repair the old item and increase its life by over %200 then why not.

Hi All, I just stumbled across this one as my series 1 xr8 is making this disturbing noise... I tried looking dfor the rockford site with no luck. I have also heard you need and alignment tool. How has the repair gone?

Cheers,