Looking to do a 6lb pulley swap and want to replace the bearings in the idlers and tensioner.
Do I replace with OEM or should I upgrade?
I can either swap out the bearings or the whole pulley.
It's a DD so it dosen't have to have BLING, it just needs to be reliable!
Maybe you can get used OEM's (low mileage) from someone else who upgraded to the billet idlers?
I think my OEM's are in a box somewhere up in the attic and should be good as they probably had less than 10k miles on them. You'd probably find people a lot closer to you than me though!
To be honest, I've never heard of any one changing the bearings in them although I guess it could be done. In this day and age, it seems like everything is just made for replacement instead of repair.
Like Caymen said...post up a WTB thread on Lightning Forums - LightningGarage.com & LightningRodder.com to see who has what...if you want OEM, you can definitely get them cheaper this way and probably with low miles on them also.
You also may want to think about getting a magnum powers idler bracket so you can run a tighter belt to prevent belt slippage.
Originally Posted by SonicHD
the magnum powers idler bracket doesnt allow you to run a tighter belt....it allows you to run a proper length belt and provide more belt wrap around the SC pulley (via the third (extra) pulley location) and on the drive side of the SC pulley
i would like to upgrade, I just don't want any china made crap thats going to fail.
what pulleys do you all recommend.
the aftermarket pulleys (to the best of my knowledge METCO, MotoBlue, SFP etc) are all made in the US. The thing that more times than not is the bearing used in them. Personally I have had every type of bearing(SKS, NTN, and a few others that have all failed prematurely) nothing lasted as long as the bearings that ford uses in their stock pulleys. I believe that they are TIMKEN made bearings (same company that makes the bearings for Ford for the front spindle, rear axle and Center Carrier driveshaft bearings on our trucks. I am now running Timken 203FF bearings in my idlers and so far im impressed...
Timken has a 203zz but was not impressed with it at all
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