Aluminum Idler Question

Dahoopd

Registered User
Is anyone running the aluminum idler pulleys from spinningwheels. The SC idler has black on the surface of the pulley. I assume its slipping? The rest of them have no surface wear. This is with maybe 100 miles on it. I have the MP spring only in the SC tensioner and also have it clocked.

Could that be the reason for the squeel I have at full boost?
 
Is the black from the back of the belt? How does the back of the belt look? I'd be concerned that the pulley or it's bearing isn't keeping up with the rapid spin needed, causing pulley to slip on the back of the belt.
 
Is the black from the back of the belt? How does the back of the belt look? I'd be concerned that the pulley or it's bearing isn't keeping up with the rapid spin needed, causing pulley to slip on the back of the belt.

Mike that's exactly what I was thinking but I figured the pulleys being brand new there shouldn't be an issue. Its a brand new belt and the back of it looks like its old as dirt now. Its worn and the pulley is black.

I am going to put a dayco pulley on and see if it helps. I think that might be where the squeal is coming from.
 
Dahoopd

I am running the spinning wheel aluminum pullys and with about 1500 miles on them are showing some surface wear.

I had a squeal or chirping and found that my belt had streatched to the point that the belt was almost touching itself. With the belt that close together, the tensioner spring was pretty well relaxed and not a lot of tension applied to the belt. In my case I just purchased a shorter belt so the tensioner was applying more tension. The noise squeal is gone and I am keeping tabs on the surface condition.
 
Is anyone running the aluminum idler pulleys from spinningwheels. The SC idler has black on the surface of the pulley. I assume its slipping? The rest of them have no surface wear. This is with maybe 100 miles on it. I have the MP spring only in the SC tensioner and also have it clocked.

Could that be the reason for the squeel I have at full boost?

I have a squeel as well some dust. I havent look that close at the pulley as the car is stored. I will be bring it out soon and one of my projects will be
90MM cobra pulleys that are surface hardened. The spinning wheel pulleys will be retired. It could be that the bearings are not rated for the speed
(15% overdrive I am running) anyway they are going away

Ken
 
I have a set of Wazee pulleys which are suppose to be harden and I just changed them out for a set of steel. They were surface wearing very badly and the bearings were going also, all with maybe 1800 to 2000 miles on them.
 
Well it was the pulley. I changed it out for a steel pulley and my boost went up from 10 to 14 before it starts to squeal. I assume the belt got stretched also because there is only a 1/4 inch between the belt. I think once I put another belt on there things should be good.

Ken,

Let me know how the Cobra pulleys workout, I do like the look of the aluminum pulleys better.
 
Cobra pulleys

I think roadhawg has been using them without any problems. Just a small mod to use them.
 
I used spinning wheels also and had slippage also. had the blower tensioner pulley replaced with one from Napa, problem solved. my car is overdriven 25% and a clocked tensioner. also the bearings were going bad on pulley. they are not made for the abuse I put them thru.
 
This is another one of the reasons why I questioned the use of those pulleys on the other thread. There have been issues with aluminum pulleys since day one, the problem is a lot of you guys don't drive your cars enough to realize how big of a problem it is.

Honestly, as much as some of you don't like the plastic pulleys, they are the best. Many are failing only after 100K miles which makes a lot of you think they are crap. But initially they are lighter and of better quality than the cheap steel pulleys that are bought at numerous places that I won't mention. If your tensioner pulleys do not spin freely - like as in take a few seconds to coast down after being spun up - then they are creating drag and contributing to belt slip. A quality plastic Gates pulley is the best - and from the look of them they appear to be OE manufacture. Unfortunately they are not available (as far as I know) in a wide enough size for the 10 rib belt.
 
I am assuming the aluminum pulleys I have cant handle the tension of the MP spring and clocking of the tensioner. All of the grease is out of the bearing and laying on the back edge of the pulley. :mad:
 
I am assuming the aluminum pulleys I have cant handle the tension of the MP spring and clocking of the tensioner. All of the grease is out of the bearing and laying on the back edge of the pulley. :mad:

Guess I will check mine out as well. I probably have the same problem. As to alum pulleys holding up in the long run. I am not concerned. My car is not a daily driven car and gets low milage put on in a year and will be way underdriven compared to a stock M90 so Alum pulleys will be just fine for me and look kick ~~~ under my hood. Seems like I have heard nothing bad from David Neibert about his;) so my opinion is if they are built with good bearings to handle the speeds than we will have to wait and see how many miles they last.

Ken
 
Modified one tensioner this morning. Sam came up from Lincoln to help. Looks like it will work nicely. Extended the arm about 1/4". I now have to find a few more or strip the ones off my car while it sits and modify them.

Ken
 
Is anyone running the aluminum idler pulleys from spinningwheels. The SC idler has black on the surface of the pulley. I assume its slipping? The rest of them have no surface wear. This is with maybe 100 miles on it. I have the MP spring only in the SC tensioner and also have it clocked.

Could that be the reason for the squeel I have at full boost?


Took mine off today and it feels like the bearing is shot on the pulley for the supercharger. Once I took off the belt there was a lot of resistance to the pulley when it should spin free. I had like 500 miles on the pulleys so they are going in the scrap alum pile. I will see how well the cobra pulleys hold up. There was also some wear on the surface of the pulley so in the long run they wouldnt last even if the pulley bearing hadnt gone bad. I also have MPs spring in the tensioners.

Ken
 
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