It works, spins, and sounds fine. However, the pulley has 90K miles on it. Should I replace it? If so, does anyone know where I could get the bearing, or will this be a TRD part (as a whole)?

My thought is to just replace it (the bearing). However, maybe 90K is nothing for this type of bearing/pulley.

Your thoughts?

From gadget's site, this is what I am talking about:

 

Actually Christian, I'd suggest that you look around and try to find a dynamic tensioner.

(another pic from Gadget's site)


I have no idea how hard they are to find, but it'll make working with that belt a lot easier.


Past that... If the bearing isn't showing slop then i'd think it was okay, but 90k worth of spinning seems to be a lot.


EDIT:
I just thought of something... in your doner, did you get the bracket that relocates the dipstick? Actually, you may not need it with the old tensioner but if you go for the dynamic, then you will. It's just a simple piece of metal that pushes the dipstick out farther from the block so that it doesn't get hung up on the tensioner or belt.

 

Always thinking aren't you Mark? I never even thought of that. I will take a look at the dip stick of the donor this afternoon and snag it. Do you have the dynamic tensioner on your rig Mark? I will have to look into that too.

As for the bearing, yeah, it's just one of those things. Probably better safe than sorry. Hopefully it would start making noise before giving out completely though.

 

All the pulley's I've ever replaced started making a racket long before they went out. I've never had one just lock up on me with no warning whatsoever. All the pulleys on my ride have 115k on them, and all the one's on the ole 87 22RE had 250K on them except for the pulley on the alternator.

 

OK, well given how easy this is to access (especially with elec fans) I might just chance it. Sounds like the dynamic tensioner is something I should be looking at more closely anyway.

Thanks!

 

I try man!


Yeup... "highly recommended".

With the old tensioner, you'll get to play the game of "how far can I tweak the alternator adjustment in order to hold onto this belt?". The dynamic is spring loaded... You just get the alternator close (like within an inch or more) and you're done.

It also makes it REAL easy to play with different pulley sizes down the road. Swap the pulley and the tensioner will automatically take up the slack.

If you can find one with less than 90k on it, then it'll be a better investment than a new bearing.

 

Cool! I am adding the tensioner to the list and I found one for $55. That works!

C'mon 97, sell!!

 

also, just so you know i used a belt tensioner gauge and found out that i still had to make a little adjustment via the altenator to get the belt within specs... the dynamic tensioner although "automatic" in adjusting the belt, the belt should still be checked

btw since you have that hold bracket, you can mod it to do gadgets nose cone support