A few months ago I had a bout with my idler pulley. It was making noises so I decided to go buy a new one. Instead of buying just the pulley from Practical Solutions, I went down to O'Reilley and bought the whole setup.

I installed it, and from the get go I could not get the belt to track straight. It even ate the brand new belt that I had. So I took it back, and go my money back. I ended up just putting the old idler back on, and Ive been running it since then.

So, this saturday, I was talking to my GrandPappy, who I bought the truck from, and he said that the same exact thing happened to him. (hence the torn hood insulation....duh) He said that he compared the old idler to the new idler, and the old (OEM) idler was different. He laid a straight edge across both pulleys, and found the problem. The OEM had a slight curvature to it, while the new one was flat all the way across. He believes that the curveature makes thebelt track straight, while the flat one just lets the belt run right off the edge.

Has anyone else delt with this, or did the both of us go buy screwed up Idlers? I can only guess that this old engine really likes its original idler..hahahah.

phillip

 

I replaced my idler a while ago with an aftermarket one and i had no problems at all. I don't remember the make but i bought at partsource which is like autozone up here. My original one was doing the shredder thing .