Idler Pulley keeps going bad

[mred03gt]

The idler pulley that attaches to the alternator foot goes bad every 5,000 miles on my 2003 GT. The bearings are fine. The plastic around them goes away. Nothing is binding. I am having no problems with the belt and getting all of my boost. Everything looks good by eye, I will check it with a straight edge, but if I need to shim something, where do you start. It looks like if I add something it will just make it out somewhere else.

Thanks

Scott

[WA2FAST]

What part of the plastic goes bad? Is it the outside lip of it, or does it just wear down the plastic in the middle?

[mred03gt]

The inside that surrounds the bearings. The outside surface is fine. Thanks for the help.

Scott

[WA2FAST]

Sounds to me the tension of the belt is getting to it. There is significantly more tension on all of the pullies than there was originally which I'm sure is why you keep blowing that pulley out. I have seen it before many times, there are companies out there that make nice billet versions of that pulley (I think UPR may be one of them) that solves that problem. They are direct replacements, check it out and let me know how it goes.