Smog Pump, Good or Bad? Q & A

If you have no cats anyhow (for off-road use, o' course ), I'd also ditch it.


Should you decide to open the pump up and fix it:
The vanes inside the pump travel on an elliptical path. The two major ways you get scraping is that the bearings on the mainshaft take a crap, which leads to screeching and the vanes hitting the walls because of the additional run-out. Or the leaf bushings begin to fail, which keeps the vanes from travelling into the drum with ease. This allows the vanes to hit the wall and side load the leaf bushings, snowballing the issue.

Some pumps do tend to make noise, but there should not be resistance to make the internals spin. Even some reman'd pumps have instructions saying that they can be noisy and drag a little (when spun by hand) for some miles.

All that said, an AIR pump delete pulley sounds like a nice alternative.

Good luck.

I would delete it. I deleted mine a month or so ago. I ran a shorter belt. I also took the canister and bracket off. I can see the ground through there now lol.

I don't know about that, the only time I've seen anyone go through alternators that fast was when they bought them from one of those "Mcdonalds Auto Parts" type places. I've never heard of this particular problem.

But along the original line of questioning: I agree with everyone else that deleting the smog pump is a good idea that shouldn't cause any problems. One less thing to crap out and ground you, IMO. My 266,000 mile GT flew through emissions without it no problem, and for that one week out of every two years that the catted oem pipe is in the car, there were no drivability issues whatsoever. Technically I wouldn't think running cats full time without the air pump working would be a good idea, but I have no personnal evidence to back this up.

If it is noisy, change it. If it fails, it drags the fanbelt with it.

If I had it connected, etc, I would just replace it. Removing it will require a belt change, etc. This costs almost as much as the pump.

My 79 still has one on it's 5.0. No clue if it works, but it and all of it's little pipes and vacuum hose buddies are still there.....

Not much. Nothing, really. However, everything you can do to make the crank spin up easier makes the process more efficient and can only be a step in the right direction. Now removing the smog pump, the power steering, and adding underdrive pulleys- there's something you may feel. Direct benifits of just removing the smog are simpler though: you'll remove weight from the heavy end of the car, remove the possibility of that pulley ever freezing up and throwing the belt leaving you stranded (had it happen), clean up the cluttered engine bay, and make it easier for the engine to do it's job. All good things.