I bought what seems to be the same air pump delete form Top Flight that everyone else buys and it's been a POS since day one.
Problem one was the belt was riding to the rear of that pulley and squeaking. I've been down the pulley alignment road before on
other motors and every other pulley in the system is fine, it was fine with the stock air pump. Between the belt self-clearance a little and me taking some
material off the back of the pulley mount stud I got it to where it's juuuust off the belt and quiet. That was a lot more jerking around
than it sounds like.

Then I says to myself "I bet this POS has a chinese bearing in it (it did) I'll replace it with a nice Timken".
Did that, maybe 50 miles later, there is this ungodly tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik noise that is clearly coming from
that pulley. Removed it, feels perfectly fine, spins free, smooth, I'd have bet my left arm, and lost it, that it was fine.
Replaced the bearing again (it was a two pack) and 50 miles later, it's started to tick again.

It's not side loaded, the belt tensioner is fine, the belt isn't too small or too large (and figuring out what size belt it needed was a pita,
it wouldn't have killed them to supply that little tid-bit), none of the pulleys are off center and nothing is bent.
Other than the bearing is undersize for the job and being loaded oddly the way the thing is constructed, I don't see
any reason for the failure. I ordered another bearing from a different manufacturer to try one more time before I
gut the air pump and put it back on.

Does anyone make one of these of any higher quality? How about an off the shelf idler pulley that would fit this bracket?

 

I made my own from a single piece of 10mm aluminum sheet. My pulley is plastic, but looks to be roughly the same size as the one I see from a picture of their product. My bearing must be close to the same size too.
Not a single problem since I installed it 20 years ago.
Maybe there is a slight offline issue with your setup ?

 

I've run straight edges on everything, I can't find anything off. I guess maybe both those Timken bearings were bad but it seems unlikely.
I bought a couple of Polish NSK's that are usually alright, guess I'll try one of them before I gut the smog pump and stick it back on
or try to make one.

 

This is the one I bought. I still need to make a bracket to go from the back of the alternator to support it, but it works great. Bit of a pain to assemble, but it works. https://pqyperformance.com/products/...orvette-c4-l98

 

Looks exactly like mine at a glance.

 

This is what I made, pretty solid.
I took dimensions back when I made it, if you’re interested, I will dig up my info.

 

That's very well done. I think I can pull the dims off this bracket I've got, do you happen to have a part number for that pulley?

 

Do you think this is something that SendCutSend could cut out? Are the dimensions a technical drawing? That would be epic. Yours is clearly stronger than the pile I bought. LOL

 

That's an excellent idea, the sendcutsend thing. I swear there should be a market for a better one of these, everyone is selling nearly identical versions of that one posted above. I think the pulley and bearing are it's biggest problem
but it's not especially robust or attractive in general.

 

I also made my own. Didn’t like the kits that were available.

Pics are in this thread
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...r-bracket.html


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Not sure if this drawing will show up
This drawing is merely traced and scanned with adobe. Not sure how accurate it will be when printed.

 

Looks well designed and strong but I would have done it a bit different.
I assume that you made it to keep the stock belt length but I would have moved the idler pulley down, and possibly used a smaller pulley too. Shorter belts are easy to find.
That would make it less obvious that it is a delete kit and more of a "factory" look..

 

I agree, it was to use the stock belt. Could have been less conspicuous. 🍺

 

I think i would just take the air pump blade out of the air pump and run it that way . I like the engine looking stock. Not that hard to take apart.

 

I de-vaned my old pump as a backup plan, it was sort of an annoyance but not really hard, worst part is the front bearing isn't readily accessible on those things.
I'm sure they press together but I'm not sure if they press apart non-destructively. Mine is okay-enough to use but I imagine some of them fail there.

 

I've only read about this. don't know if it works
84 air pump delete | Corvette Forum - Corvette Action Center
guy put on a 85.5 serpentine on. no pump no pulley

 

Some Timken bearings are made in china.

 

Thus far the Polish bearing I put in has outlasted both of the Timken's. Still haven't gone very far.

 

1984 belt routing (top) is different from 1985 up.