testknight

Well, I was driving my family and I up to visit family and about 50 miles out of town my alternator light came on, lost power steering, yada yada. I managed to get it to the nearest exit just a couple miles down the road. Its the idler at about 7 o' clock from the supercharger pulley, its just underneath another idler just to the left of the sc pulley.

We were stranded there for a number of hours as I had friends in another city come get my wife and kids...I had a family member drive me all teh way back home to get the needswings pulley saver kit I bought and had not yet installed...but after tearing things down there in the parking lot once I got back I found that the casting the pulley mounts to was torn apart as well...so I'll need to replace the plate...which I beleive is the water pump housing as well.

Man, this sucks...I have barely driven this car and I've already had a number of issues and its adding up big $$$ each time. Just had to pay big for a tow truck to drive 100 miles round trip to come and take my car home...and now another (yes my second) water pump housing.

I'm hoping the water pump housing is not a tough job as I can't afford to have the work done...looking at it, it doesn't seem very difficult.

WHat a shi_tty b-day that was.

02C32guy

I'm right there with you (see my new thread). This definitely sucks. I think you motivated me to pull the trigger on the pulley saver kit though.

jturkel

damn, man. i see you having problem after problem. you really are getting it rough. i hope you get everything worked out. i have no idea how bad the water pump housing job is, but the needswings pulley saver kit will help solve all future problems with bearings and such. best of luck to you.

jturkel

do it. while the high speed bearings are indeed better than stock, i think after seeing a couple now go out, they still have a somewhat limited life span. with the NW PSK, i have peace of mind (pulley wise lol)

320 dreamer

im now running a psk (testing) for the c3 crowd!! so far about a 1000 miles and a ton of high speed blasts with no issues

02C32guy

Sweet! I've been wondering. Let me know as soon as Rob decides its safe for the rest of us.

TemjinX2

Yeah you gotta keep in mind when you have the 185mm in there, your spinning the other pulleys quite a bit faster then stock. So its going to kill it a lot faster. I was going through oem idler pullies pretty much every 6months with the 185mm. Of course, I do drive around 20k a yr though.

The PSK is definately a good investment for any 185mm owner.

I'd recommend investing in a AAA card. Its 7 free tows for up to 100 miles for $100 a yr.

AirFrcd

I am sorry to hear of your misfortune(s).
I have recently experienced the same situation (LET idler failure), and had to replace the water pump as well.
My idler bearing failed after 15K miles. I will be replacing mine every 12K in the future as a maintenance item, if I still own the car.

TemjinX2

Just get the PSK kit. It'll make the pullies last longer and you don't have to keep replacing them.

TBM1

I had the same exact thing happen about 2 weeks ago. Idler pulley seized and tore up the mount which is part of the water pump. Wasn't cheap!!!

gtr886

How do you know when to replace the Idler pulley? My pulley is still stock I think.... I already have 120k miles on it.

TBM1

Mine started squeaking for about a month before it locked up.

gt4awd

Wondering if there is a way to modify the mounting point, or bolting setup on the water pump location to prevent destroying it if a failure does occur? Something to look into for the stock users that can't run a PSK maybe...

02C32guy

I'm sure the stock guys could use the the C3 psk as well.

RedBull

Yep, same thing happened to me too just recently.

boohooramblers

Guys - if you have an M112K with 70K+ miles, etc., etc., then you ought to just go ahead and replace the idler pulley. Check out my earlier thread for particulars on torque values and other specifics.

The idler pulley fails for a variety of reasons -
A) Mostly due to simple wear and tear and subsequent failure of the bearing.
B) Over-torquing the pulley bolt is another reason for failure.
C) Increased rotational speeds - i.e. any overdrive pulley system that doesn't compensate.

For the sake of $70, just put a new one on. Once you reach a certain mileage or wear and tear on this pulley, I don't think any pulley saver kit is going to help (ultimately). If the pulley is already on its downwards spiral, it's going to continue.

While you are at it, check your stock crank pulleys and make sure the elastomer is not damaged - another wear and tear issue.

RedBull

A lot of us aren't on the stock pulleys.

c32AMG-DTM

Noticed that as well. For whatever reason, it does seem that occurrence of aftermarket idler failures is increasing at a fairly alarming rate at present. For each instance, it would be good to know the approximate time/mileage the idler lasted prior to failure, if that information is available.

OT: what is your sig. video from? It's really funny.

RedBull

I had the aftermarket idler pulley on the car for roughly 20k miles before it seized. Now it has the 19k rpm bearing, so hopefully it should lessen the chances of future problems, but I know there is no guarantee on that.

Don't know what the video is from. It had me rolling when I first saw it.

gtr886

ANY DIY?

What number is it down there?

320 dreamer

#4#6#9 all prone to failure.
the psk changes the location of # 4 and reinforces the mount points with a machined bushing and bracket. also the larger pulleys slow down the rotational speed by inc. the size of the pullies by 10mm and adding a longer belt.
i replaced 3 pulleys within 6 months due to bearing failure. peace of mind is well worth the small cost of the psk kit. most folks spend more than the cost of the kit on waxes and kool looking key fobs!

#5 also prone to failure but for other reasons mainly wear

testknight

FYI, mine had less than 2k miles after 185 pulley was installed

Newzchspy

Are 4, 6 and 9 part of the NeedsWings kit??

60n5pt1

I just replaced #5 with an NSK ($50.00). This is the SC pulley (Code3).
I replaced both #6 and #4 only because I thought #6 was going bad at the time only to find out it was #4 that was going bad. They both have about 25K miles on them. So far, no problem. knock on wood.

What is the elastomer on the stock crank pulley? Is this replaceable without having to replace the pulley itself?

c32AMG-DTM

^^^Good info here, and all true - however, #4 is the specific pulley that a seemingly large sample of aftermarket overdrive crank-pulley kits have had fail prematurely. And in most cases, requiring replacement of the WP (or at least the housing).