1994 Viper. Misaligned pulley?

1994viper · Sep 11, 2009

I developed a pinhole leak in high pressure PS hose yesterday. So I took the car to a mechanic today to fix it. While looking for the leak, I noticed that my belt is not sitting right on the bottom pulley, which is located right under the PS pump. It seems that the belt had jumped two groves on the pulley towards the engine. (Please see illustration)
Does anyone have any idea why that would happen? This is also not the first time this is happened.

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BTW my tech guy wants to replace the hose with a custom made one. He says that it will be cheaper and faster, as it costs $190 Canadian, and will take almost a week to get here. Should I go for his solution?

plumcrazy · Sep 12, 2009

only thing i can think of is.....the lower pulley being loose maybe ? allowing it to slide

dave6666 · Sep 12, 2009

Put the belt on correctly, run the engine and look for pulley runout (wobble). If OK, then a straight edge across all of the pulley faces. 1mm tolerance is good on that using a groove or ridge as a reference point. Also check your tensioner.

Dan Cragin · Sep 13, 2009

PS Pulleys have been known to move on the shaft or crack.

1994viper · Sep 13, 2009

DC Performance said:
PS Pulleys have been known to move on the shaft or crack.

I was told that my GEN I PS pulley is Metal one, so shouldn't be the case.

Tom F&L GoR · Sep 13, 2009

Doesn't the crank pulley (maybe all pulleys) have taller walls on the most inner and most outer groove? That means the belt didn't just move over two grooves, it had to jump over a taller groove. Somewhere on the back of the belt should be the part number, which can be used to verify the size. Perhaps you have a belt that is a smidge too long. Along this thinking, maybe the tensioner is lazy. The belts have cord inside, so stretching might be possible, but seems last on the list.

boman · Sep 13, 2009

I had a pinhole leak in the power steering hose on my '94 also. It was chaffing on the power steering pump reservoir. The Mopar replacement hose was slightly longer, which eliminated the rubbing condition.

1994viper · Sep 16, 2009

Just got the car back with the fixed hose. But my belt problem still exists. The technician came to a conclusion that the PS pulley is sitting too deep towards the block compared to the other pulleys on the car. He wasn’t able to explain how exactly did this happen, but suggested that I’ll drive for a bit and see, if the belt jumps again. In which case the PS system will need to be taken off and pulley to be moved forward, if it’s possible (apparently the tool would not fit in the space between the frame and the pulley to be removed). Could the pulley bolt itself in too much over time? Everything else appears all right.
Ohh, I need to find a Viper tech in Toronto.

Paul S Lacey · Sep 16, 2009

96 Model has a different Power steering pump and the pulley is offset so best to start with the straight edge chances of it jumping the deep groove are slim and the wrong pulley on the wrong pump would cause the problem

Tom F&L GoR · Sep 16, 2009

This is a kludge, but...

When I bought my Viper a long time ago, places like Dave's Big Brakes didn't exist to make billet underdrive pulleys. The previous owner, being a clever guy, bought an underdrive pulley for a 5.9L V8. The difference was that it was one rib less than the Viper belt. So he bought a 6 rib (I didn't go count) instead of 7 rib. If your pulley is off by that much, you can buy one rib less and be "normal" on all pulleys and off one rib with the power steering, but at least it won't want to jump. I've had this belt for >70,000 miles with no issues except that part of the flat pulley on the tensioner shows and so it rusts. But it's peace of mind until the pulley question is taken care of.

1994 Viper. Misaligned pulley?

1994viper

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plumcrazy

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dave6666

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Dan Cragin

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1994viper

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Tom F&L GoR

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boman

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1994viper

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Paul S Lacey

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Tom F&L GoR

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