I know this topic doesn’t affect very many Beaver owners but on 1991 and 1992, possibly other years, with the 3176 Caterpillar this may help prevent problems in the future. I had a terrible noise when walking around the back of the coach, it sounded like the cooling fan rubbing on the fan shroud, but it was not. I removed the A/C compressor belt and the serpentine belt from the fan hub pulley, with the side radiator this pulley is more of an idler pulley, and with the belts removed the bearings were dry and noisy. There is no way to grease these bearings because the bearings are pressed into the pulley. Trying to find part numbers I called Caterpillar and they said the chassis builder installed the fan hub. I called Gillig and left a message with the “motor home” guy and he never called back. So I removed the bolt in the center of the pulley and was prepared to use a puller to remove the pulley , but it slid off the shaft by hand. There is a large snap ring on the back (front) side of the pulley that secures the bearings in the pulley and I couldn’t see any markings on the bearings. I went to a local machine shop and they removed the snap ring and pressed out the bearings, the numbers were on the inside. The bearings were SKF 6209-2RSTN9. A call to the bearing shop in Tacoma and they had the SKF bearings for $90.00 each or Axis bearing number 6209 2RS C3 EMQ for $30.00 each and the salesman said both were from China so I went with Axis. The machine shop pressed in the new bearings for $40.00 so for $100.00 I was headed home and in about 30 minutes from getting home the pulley was back on and the Cat was purring like a, well you know. Like I said in the beginning, I don’t know how many Beavers are still on the road with the 3176 but this was a really easy fix, especially because I was home and not stuck on the side of the road trying to figure this out. Hope this helps.
