Partial rub and looseness are common faults in rotating machinery because of the clearance between the rotor and the stator. These problems cause malfunctions in rotating machinery and create strange vibrations coming from impact and friction. However, non-linear and non-stationary signals due to impact and friction are difficult to identify. Therefore, exact time and frequency information is needed for identifying these signals. For this purpose, a newly developed time-frequency analysis method, HHT (Hilbert-Huang Transform), is applied to the signals of partial rub and looseness from the experiment using RK-4 rotor kit. Conventional signal processing methods such as FFT, STFT and CWT were compared to verify the effectiveness of fault diagnosis using HHT. The results showed that the impact signals were generated regularly when partial rub occurred, but the intermittent impact and friction signals were generated irregularly when looseness occurred. The time and frequency information was represented exactly by using HHT in both cases, which makes clear fault diagnosis between partial rub and looseness.