Mitsumark

Car is a 99 that has been Procharged for about 5K miles...52K on car.I was driving very slow yesterday and started hearing a loud knocking noise under the hood..Being the car is nicely modded I thought the worse...Upon opening the hood the noise was an extremely loud knocking noise along with a metalic grinding noise..I notice the belt is starting to cook and there are big sparks shooting out from behind the WP pulley..I took the belt off and the WP pulley literally has a full inch of in and out play..The knocking was the WP shaft failing and the metal noise and sparks were from the pulley grinding on the WP housing..Looks lIke the pulley almost waliked off the shaft....I've never seen a WP fail in this fashion suddenly...I'm guessing the stress from the Procharger caused the failure?...The car is running a P1SC with a 3.85 pulley and A&A latest bracket...Now I can handle to WP repair...My worries and questions start with the belt...Supposedly the bracket is A&As latest design...It doesn't look like there's a way to install the new belt without removing the charger...My other worry is I've read a lot of horror stories about slippage and throwing belts constantly..I'm afraid if I tamper with the chargers head unit this may happen..I was gonna take the car down to ECS as they are about 50 min from me...However that isn't an option now as it can't be driven due to the belt being gone.I ordered a new WP and tensioner tonight...I'm gonna tac weld the pulley to the WP shaft on the new pulley to prevent this failure from happening again..Again I've always did my own repairs but I drive this car long distance and I don't want to get stranded over belt issues...So I can do the WP repair myself and attempt the belt installation...Or I could hire someone that is familiar with this setup to do the WP and belt.....Any of you forum members close to CNJ want to make some side money?..

neverstop

if you just tack weld the pulley onto the water pump and get a new belt you'll be fine. lots of people with 10s of thousands of miles on procharged and supercharged cars without issues. removing and reinstalling the supercharger with the bracket takes about 30 minutes and if you just take it off and put it back on you won't have any issues. make sure you get an OEM water pump from the GM dealer and not some generic one from online or auto parts store. the supercharger bolts to the water pump do you don't want to introduce any changes there.
don't worry about it.

Mitsumark

I ordered a new factory GM pump and tensioner..From the looks of the Supercharger bracket,,it doesnt look like I can install the new belt without removing the charger head unit..Unless I remove the pulley,,feed the belt through and reinstall the pulley..Is that possible?My biggest fear is moving the charger head unit and having misalignment issues With the belt after..

CorvetteC5Norway

Same thing happened to me after my ECS install this summer. Ordered a new oem pump, and the pulley on that one went out after another 200 miles. The pulley/wheel is cast, so I can't see how you can weld it? I have my installer making a new pulley in alu which he is installing on my oem pump

Mitsumark

I've read on several threads that this is fairly common on LS cars with Centrifugal blowers...Found dozens of pics with the same failure..Common repair seems to be to tac weld the pulley...I've seen several pics of it being done...The pic below I found online...May even be your car before you had your pulley made...I'm gonna go that route and reinstall..If it happens again I'm gonna tear out the charger all together...I drive the car far sometimes and I don't need the aggravation of having to worry all the time about throwing belts and being stranded...The car has the latest Gen A&A bracket on it...It looks like the Procharger has to come off to repair the pump...Can anyone tell me if that is the case?..And also if the latest A&A bracket eliminates the factory tensioner on the WP?...I haven't looked at it in detail yet..I was just happy to make it home the other night only being 2 miles away when it happened..

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Mitsumark

If you look closely in this pic,,,you can clearly see where the pulley failed...Looks like the pulley may be 2 separate pieces when manufactured..Either pressed or welded together..This one is my car as it sits...
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jfernandez98

Had the same issue with the wife's car. That is the old style original water pump. You can tell by the two piece pulley. You can order a replacement water pump and install it your self. You will have to remove the procharger and brackets in order to replace the WP. Not too hard just takes some time and skills. It will be fine with the stock WP.. If you don't want to do it yourself call ECS or Tune Time both in central NJ and they can take care of the install. Look at the thread by corvettc5norway.