Tensioner pulley?

mob said:

It doesnt have to have grooves but I would make sure it has a lip on each end, if it doesnt just go to your local advance autoparts or autozone and get a new tensioner pulley, they will have the lip and will be cheap.

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ras50gt said:

It does NOT have lips on it, thats what I was worried about....

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Those "lips" are NOT necessary, I'm telling you. They're not a bad idea, of course, but those crappy plastic idler pulleys I was talking about are EXACTLY like the one pictured above. THEY SUCK. The smooth metal pulley, which is apparently what you have, will not only work well, but will probably last a LOT longer.

The belt isn't going to just jump right off the tensioner if it doesn't have those "lips" on the sides of it because it's not the tensioner's job to keep the belt in alignment - all it does is apply downward (or upward, depending on your setup) pressure upon the belt. Besides, if the belt was far enough out of alignment that those ridges on the sides of the pulley would actually be necessary, the belt would either get thrown off or start to shred itself on the other accessories before it ever gets to the tensioner, anyway. I have plenty of pics of the three belts my '84 ate up in short order because the water pump pulley was 1/8" out of alignment, if you need photographic evidence.

I've been running one of those smooth metal pulleys on my '89 for 2 years or so now without any problems whatsoever; the plastic crap pulleys have only lasted me about 6 months before the bearing takes a dump, and the contact surface of the pulley, itself, was starting to look like it was actually wearing down over time. The parts stores may or may not list more than one level of quality for replacement pulleys. They let me go back there and check all the ones they had in stock until I found one that was the right diameter and had the right center bore size - wasn't hard, as it's apparently a pretty common pulley size. I think I paid $19.99 for it at the time (plus tax). I guess I can dig through my mountain of receipts for the part number when I get home, if anyone wants it.

I'm starting to recall how many returns I got on those plastic tensioner pulleys back when I worked at the parts store. People would get them for all makes and models and shortly thereafter they would come back in pieces.