Growling bearing on serpentine belt

Hello Sprinter Forum I am a new member of this forum in Alaska. We are a river outfitter in Cooper Landing Alaska. www.alaskariverscompany.com We our the new owners of two 15 passenger Sprinters 2012 and 2014 both with 6 cylinder diesels and both with roof air conditioners. They both have two belts.

My 2014 is making a growling sound that is very noticeable at idle coming from a pulley for the belt. I want to remove the belts and spin the individual pulleys to see which one is growling but I am having problems removing the belts. I only have basic tools nothing fancy.

Any advice would be great!

Thanks

Chuga.
You do not say what tools you have, one possibility is to get a very small amount of diesel fuel on to the bearings one at a time until you notice a change. Most bearings have a clip on plastic cover that you would have to pop of with a knife. Eric

Have you checked your power steering fluid? Low fluid level will make power steering pump growl.

My power steering fluid is good I don't believe it is the pump. As you look at the engine from the front the growling seems to be coming from one of the pulleys on the lookers left side of the engine.
As far as tools I have all the basic tools you would find in a home shop but I don't have the specialty tools to relieve the pressure of the belt tensioners. Thank you for your replies.

If you have a dual system the most noisiest will be the pogo stick mounted pulley.
You can release that with a 1/2 square drive knuckle bar.
The regular belt tension-er has a provision for a 12 point socket which again can be released with hand tools.
Obviously you MUST remove the fan cowl and fan to gain meaningful access to the accessory belts equipment. Be prepared !
Dennis

I got the rear air conditioner belt off today and then started the engine. My growling bearing is still growling. It is definitely coming from the looker left side. So if I remove the serpentine belt and find the growling bearing can anyone who has done this task before tell me how hard it will be taking off the fan and cowling and how difficult replacing the bad part myself might be? I have worked on many vehicles over the years and have done lots of basic maintenance such as changing brakes, drive lines, glow plugs and injectors on a 7.3 international, radiators and such but have never had to work on a Mercedes before. Is this a job best left for a shop or something that a basic grease monkey can do without a garage. aka dirt rolling. Thank you

My growling noise ended up being the bearings inside of the water pump. We put over 1000 miles on with the water pump growling. I had a shop perform this epic task of removing the entire front of the Sprinter to access the water pump.

^^ how much did that cost? I think I may be having the same issue. My "growling" sounds just like what broken bearings sound like, more of a grind than a growl.

We just had a tensioner pulley freeze at the same time as the alternator, with a squeeze we changed both on the roadside.