Yes, the only wrong way to install the pulley is to forget the o-ring. I
have yet to see one bend without breaking. If it is visibly moving in/out,
then the crank is moving which means some ting happened to the thrust
plate and shims behind the flywheel. It should only be able to move ~
004".

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Benny boy
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 5:22 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Water pump premature failure

Everything is pretty straight foward around that pulley.

Was that pulley "out of whack" when you got the van/engine? did you ever
notice? if something as just started lately, that big bolt is loose, if
not,
it as been like that for a wile and you never noticed!

There is no way that pulley will go bad if nothing happen.

If it as been like that for a wile, it was simply wrongly installed, it
was
force in and the key/groove were not align properly, to do so, you must be
drunk :-) There is nothing to it, align pulley, bolt it in. I never use a
torque wrench, i always use my impact gun for this one. As to belt, again,
there is nothing there. just leave some loose, i mean you should be able
to
 move this one up and down about 1/2 in, or better, you should be able to
twist this one 180deg (even more) EASILY.

No, if that pulley is really offset, go see a mechanic before this one
spin
out an/or break the cranshaft!!! i have seen that happen, not pretty.

Ben

On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:47:38 -0500, Geza Polony <gezapolony@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
wrote:

>It's those "nasty belt oscillations" that I'm worried about. This is
>definitely a 3-groove pulley, and it's definitely out of whack, at least
>horizontally. I certainly have never removed the pulley on this VWoC
>remanufactured engine, but maybe the PO did for some reason. It doesn't
look
>like the kind of thing you'd do for fun.
>
>I'll try tightening the belt down some more but I've always been afraid
of
>killing the bearings that way. Both Bentley and Haynes are near useless
on
>this point: the belt is supposed to deflect 10-15mm when pressing
"firmly"
>with thumb, but what does "firmly" mean? Arnold says one thing, Maria
>another. Vast difference.
>
>Yeah, this is a primitive design, with the alt/wp belt contacting maybe
20%
>of the drive pulley. It seems like to make it work you have to tighten
the
>belts way more than you would with greater contact surface, leading
>to...premature bearing failure. I bet some ingenious guy could come up
with
>an idler system that would help us out. Any takers?