One of mine failed in the same manner as speedjunkie's - on the dyno though.

Hard to tell if there's any loctite or similar used to retain the pulley on the bearing, or if it's a light press fit....one of these days might get around to making one retained by a circlip. Amount of freeplay in the bearing from new was always a concern.

 

Cool ****, thanks man!

 

Well, I had one of the original bearings (bad from the start), received a replacement shortly after that and have been using it since. I don't get on the forums much any more so I didn't realize people were still having problems with them. Mine failed last night around 1am. Not quite as spectacularly as some of yours, but it made a lot of noise, smoke and bad smells.

It gave basically no warning before letting go. This is my summer DD and I've been using it all season. Drove to work yesterday morning, back home, out to a work function, back home, then back out to a going away party for a coworker. Not a peep. Go to start the car and head home and it starts squealing, vented hood, early morning dew, not abnormal. Pull out on to the main road squeeling goes away. Get about 10 miles down the road and it comes back, faintly. At this point I'm pretty sure something is wrong so I plan to get home (another 5 miles or so) and park it until I can diagnose the problem. About a mile later the noise gets extremely loud, mixed with smoke from the vents and the ever wonderful burning smell. Clutch in, engine dies, coast off the next exit and park the car. After getting it towed home I pull the belt assembly apart and the bearing is completely toast.

If you're still using one of these be careful, even the 'good ones' apparently fail quickly and without much warning. If you plan to keep using it I would carry a couple extra wrenches and a spare belt. It 100% fixed my WP slipping issues (on track, regular driving was usually fine), and worked great for quite a few years, but this would have been a major inconvenience if I wouldn't have been so close to home.



Anyone have feedback on the Boca Bearings mentioned earlier? I'm going to just swap a smaller belt on for now but I'd like to find a reasonable solution and continue to use this pulley. May look into having it machined like Banzai suggested. Bearing issues aside it works really well.

 

I still didn't fix mine yet. Seriously it's not worth to fix. I would just get the pineapple idler or run without one. I never had a problem with the under drive pulley. Mine bearing gave me one squeak and then froze and stalled the car.

 

I have the underdrive pulley, it works fine for normal driving but it slipped quite a bit on track under heavy load. And the pineapple idler interferes with my turbo.

This pulley/bracket are a decent design, they just need a good bearing. Any pulley can fail like this with a cheap bearing. I had mine on the car for 4-5+ years, with a better bearing I wouldn't worry too much about it. Though I will add a smaller belt to the rear bin lol.

$30 for that ceramic bearing (rated from 29k-35k rpms vs 19kfor the original ) isn't bad, was mostly curious if anyone had any feedback on it. Seems like it should work fine though.

 

Supposedly Pineapple has similar problems

https://www.rx7club.com/new-old-prod...ilure-1085609/

 

Mine failed after about 6K, but mostly track time.
I am taking this thing out and going back to stock form, so no more Tweakit pulley.
The problem is, if it locks up on you, your SOL, unless you have a factory belt as a spare.
For sale sign coming up soon.

 

How many parts could break that wouldn't leave you SOL? Out of the possibilities a belt is on the lower end of the spectrum for worry IMO.

My odo is broken but I had to put at least 20k miles on this one. Which I would not call reliable, but if the weak point is the bearing I'd be confident in the part with an upgraded unit. I'll probably still pack a spare belt just in case, but that's easy/cheap enough to toss under the trunk.

 

Or option #3...get in touch with Garfinkle. Mine's been trouble free since install 6 or 7 years ago.

 

^^ good to know. I have one of the tweak it ones and so it appears to be a high likely hood failure. Might as well get rid of it

 

Just FYI, belts, hoses, flat tire and gas are the most common things that will strand on the side of the road.
Yet, people seem to not know the obvious.