The car has 93k miles on the car with a few mods, I have changed both belts the other day I heard the idler pulley making noise,
then I take care out on sunday for a drive and the serpentine belt started screaming and aux battery low came on. So I popped hood
and saw the bottom tensioner pulley is gone and the belt is riding on the metal cap. WOW!!

1.So I want to know if there is a link on here that someone could share their view on how to replace without not taking out the fan to replace the tensioner pulley and might as well replace the idler pulley. Or is the tensioner fine and just replace the pulley?
2.I have decent setup already with supercharger pulley's already billet and a fixed 74mm pulley as well. so was thinking of going with the billet engine pulley's also but was wondering which brand would you guys recommend and should I just buy a new OEM tensioner or is there an aftermarket one? thanks

 

No need to remove the fan. It's a tight fit but doable.

It is possible to replace just the pulley on the lower tensioner. I did so once when I stripped out one of the tensioner mounting bolts. I mistakenly used a a T-40 torx bit in a T-45 torx bolt! Short term I pulled the pulley off of the new tensioner, installed it on the old tensioner, and ran it until I could get the stripped bolt out. (Note: you do NOT want to strip one of those bolts as they are in a very un-accessible location.)

To do it properly, take a look at your new tensioner, then rotate the tensioner pulley on the car and insert a pin (allen wrench or whatever) to hold it in the open position to make it easier to access one of the two Torx bolts. If you don't have a pin, you can still get the bolts out with the tensioner in the released position. Pull the pan so you can get at it from underneath if you have to.

FWIW, when I replace one pulley, I replace them all at the same time to reduce the risk of another failure a few weeks/months down the road. I do this every 60K miles as a preventive maintenance item.

Part number for the bolt holding the serpentine belt tensioner pulley to the block is: 003-990-16-12 drive belt tensioner bolt. I now keep a couple of spares on hand; if a bolt looks slightly worn or damged, I replace the thing so I don't have to go through that goat rope again.

For question #2 I have no input.

 

Wow 60k maintenance interval. I would think it would be acceptable to check the pulleys at some periodicity but I don't really know what to use as a threshold. Obviously a howling bearing is a ticking time bomb. But anything less, I'm not sure. Some say when they spin with no drag it is already too far gone. Or if it has even a little bit of play. I'm not sure those are reasonable standards but maybe you have an opinion.

 

Between the 60K service, whenever I have a reason to remove the belt, I spin all pulleys. Any noise or "roughness" I immediately replace that pulley. They should be quiet and smooth as silk. Only had to do so twice over the last seven years but it does happen (including one pulley bearing that suffered "infant mortality" with less than 10,000 miles on it).

I regularly make a drive of over 1000 miles round trip and check all pulleys a couple of days before departure. I do not want to end up on the side of the road somewhere between Ballinger and Sweetwater, Texas. Lots of empty space out there...

 

Yeah I'm following you. Unfortunately I find the main belt kind of a pain to R&R (requiring me to get under the car). But that's no excuse not to check the pulleys...

 

thanks