Idle Pulleys

R

ryan a harris

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Idle Pulleys

Today i swapped in the 3 ford idler pulleys. Should I be expecting any change in the car.
As in my idle now is a bit higher?
The blower sounds a little louder.


I remeber that Bill had a problem with his, what was it?

I know that that diameter of two is the same, but the one on SC is a bit larger. Also the radius on the steel pulleys is somewhat of a concern. Is anyone using thses without any problems?

I hope I installed them correctly, get rid of the washer that the steel ones come with, when I put them on I did not use the old washer.

Thanks for any input guys.
 
Re: Idle Pulleys

Ryan,

I don't think you should be expecting any change in performance from swapping in the steel pulleys. This change should not have resulted in any change in idle, nor blower noise.

The only issue that we had with using the FRPP steel pulleys on Bill's car was that the surface of the pulleys on which the belt rides is a little more narrow than the stock plastic pulleys. I believe on the Ford steel pulleys you can't reuse the steel washer or cover that was used for the stock plastic pulleys. You can reuse these with the Dayco pulleys.

The biggest reason that people upgrade to the steel idler pulleys is to replace the original units in which the bearings tend to get noisy over time.

Hope this helps shed some light for you.

Best regards,
 
Re: Idle Pulleys

Drill out the washer that the new pullies came with. As these are a dust cap, they are there to extend the life of the bearings.
 
Re: Idle Pulleys

Sean, just to be a nit-picker, those Ford steel pulleys aren't FRPP parts, they are Ford Motorcraft division replacement parts. You'll have all the new guys hopelessly looking through the FRPP catalogue for SC parts, and they won't find a @#%$ thing !! :)

cheers
Ed N.
 
Re: Idle Pulleys

Ed,

Sorry, but when Bill described them to me, he said they were FRPP parts. I just assumed that someone discovered that pulleys off a Mustang or Cobra happened to fit our cars (almost).

I guess these are just Ford replacement parts that don't seem to fit just right. They seem to be for some application that makes use of a narrower serpentine belt.
 
Re: Idler Pulleys

The Motorcraft YS-233 pulleys are stock replacements for 96-99 Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, Town Car, and Mustang with the 4.6L engine. They are for a 6-rib belt, so our 7 and 8 rib pieces will overhang them slightly. I've had them on my car for a while now, the only thing I noticed was a line on the smooth side of the main drive belt. Much better than the wavy pattern I was getting on the pulleys and the belts with the stock plastic pulleys.

cheers
Ed N.
 
Re: Idle Pulleys

Yeah, I noticed that too Ed. I didn't like the fact that the sharp edge of those idler pulleys were riding on the belts, so I took them off and pressed the bearing in a little (about 2-3mm) on each pulley so they lined up properly with each belt. Each one required a slightly different offset as well. Les used the Dayco pulleys and they don't run true on his belts either. Easy to fix though...

93 Thunderbird SC auto
 
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