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I've never heard of anyone trying to spacer a pulley to improve the alignment, but I guess it could be done? But to be honest it would be better to get the correct pulleys and/or brackets to have everything properly aligned.
You didn't say what year you're working on, but as an FYI 63-74 power steering pumps have a keyway pump shaft, 75-79 and 80-82 pumps use a press on pulley.
It's a '73 w/a 350. Curious about shimming the bore of the pulley to fit the pump shaft. Does anyone know if that would cause a problem? It does have a keyway.
The problem I see is your going to get runout. Because by just trying to shim it you are going to throw the concentricity of the ID that fits over the shaft to the major OD of the pulley. You need to have the right pulley that fits your power steering pump
I'm not clear on why you need to "shim" the bore and what exactly that means. The correct pulley should fit on the pump shaft with a relatively snug hand fit that fully seats with the nut.
Maybe the following applies to your question...
My '72 pulley was damaged by the key not fitting correctly. Early this summer my "guy" sent it to his "guy" who repaired the bore with a screw in plug, pinned it in place, and then cut and reamed the bore to correct size (~0.001+ clearance), and finished up with broaching a new keyway. $100 out the door vs. $150 for a repro or $300 for original GM. The pulley runs true.
It's a pulley that came with a serpentine belt kit and it is too close to the cross member. It seems that it is the wrong kit entirely and I am trying to find a pulley with a smaller od so I don't have to take the entire kit off of the car. I can find one with either the correct bore or a smaller od but not both. My only other option is to replace the entire kit, which is probably what I should do.
It's a pulley that came with a serpentine belt kit and it is too close to the cross member. It seems that it is the wrong kit entirely and I am trying to find a pulley with a smaller od so I don't have to take the entire kit off of the car. I can find one with either the correct bore or a smaller od but not both. My only other option is to replace the entire kit, which is probably what I should do.
I see - I believe we were of the assumption you were having problems with the GM parts.
What company is the supplier of the kit? That may help come up with solutions from others with the same kit. Perhaps post a couple photos of the pulley.
How much space are you needing to take up? I'm thinking maybe a strip of shim material inside the bore from key way edge to key way edge may work unless you want to go the full route my guy did to do my repair. Whatever shim thickness you use, remember that you're doubling up the correction - i.e., 0.001" is going to take up 0.002" of bore space.
