SC jackshaft belt just broke, only 2K miles...

cp308

Registered User
I replaced all my belts with new gatorbacks 2000 miles ago, and my supercharger jackshaft pulley just broke on me! At the time of installation, the tensioners all showed that tension was within the acceptable range...

The pulleys are turning freely, and the supercharger is turning freely as well.

Something else funny, the belt broke in at least 2 places (these were found in the engine compartment).

At the time I replaced the belts, I also replaced my tensioner pulleys with aluminum ones from heartland. I noticed that the backs of the new belts were picking up what appears to be aluminum dust, but thought nothing of it at the time. Dust or not, a new belt shouldn't break anywhere near so soon.

Anyone had or heard of this problem? I installed gatorbacks because I was told they were among the best available for the car, but now I wonder.....
 
my motorcraft belt had over 215k on it when i replaced it it was still going but very ragged
 
Heartland tensioner pulley seized up

Thanks for the input guys-

I took a closer look- I don't know how I missed it, but the tensioner for the jack shaft belt was seized up. Fortunatly, I saved the old plastic pulley, and was able to put it back on.

This really is disapointing, since the main reason I "upgraded" to the heartland pulleys was to avoid this very failure. And the plastic pulleys were getting worn and not quite round anymore.

I did notice that the new pulleys seemed to have pretty stiff bearings, but I thought it must have been just the seals were new and they would loosen up. Well, I had to take the tension off the serpentine belt in order to get the new jackshaft belt on, and I noticed that the tensioner for it is still pretty stiff.

I will have to ask heartland about this when I ask for a new pulley. The old Ford OEM pulley spins quite freely....

Anyone else had problems with these heartland pulleys?
 
BT Motorsports said:
Just to clarify, the tensioner arm was bad or the tensioner pulley itself siezed?

Paul

It was the pulley bearing which was seized. I contacted Heartland and they said there was a problem with their manufacturing process where the bearings were being damaged when being pressed into place. This caused the one pulley to fail and the other 2 to be hard to turn. They got replacements right out to me, and are letting me send the defectives back after installing the replacements. I'm still out the gatorback, but at least they acknowledged they had a problem and quickly replaced the defective items and didn't make me send back the bad items in advance. Overall, I;m still pleased.

If anyone else noticed that their heartland tensioner pulleys don't spin freely, they may want to contact heartland about replacements....
 
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