4.0 Idler Pulley Replacement OEM vs Gates Reference

Fwiw the problem trucks in the north have is that the pulley is rusted. (PA truck) So a tensioner bearing alone is not the complete fix. I did use the pulley @Chuy referenced in post #27 about 8 months ago. So far so good. Certainly would have preferred the bearing alone and reusing the pulley but was not an option.

 

So, would I need to order 3 of the Febest pulleys and 3 of the Japanese bearings then press out the Chinese bearings and then just swap out the 2 idlers and 1 tensioner?

 

The tensioner is different from the idler pulleys. There are three idler pulleys, two are the same and one is different. I am not sure what the replacements are (read above) for the pulleys on the idlers however as far as I can tell you can swap out the bearing of the tensioner shown above. Unless of course your tensioner pulley has a ton of wear on it.

 

Tonight I located the source of my whine and it's the idler to the direct left of the alternator. I took a 2 foot long breaker bar and stuck on the bolt and gave it a slight push and the sound went away. So what bearing should I buy to get this replaced? I would love to buy the whole assembly and keep this as a spare.

 

I replaced all pulleys and tension assembly with the gates stuff. It all lined up and works well.

 

Take a look at the first post - there is a diagram to the pulley orientation that shows the generator (alternator). As for the bearing for it - you'll have to dig around the post to see if there is one listed. The idlers were cheap enough for me to just replace.

 

Thanks Bruce, I will check. I found this listed on one of the FJ forums so I may just order this:

$37 Gates 36173 DriveAlign Belt Drive Idler/Tensioner Pulley

https://www.amazon.com/Gates-36173-...F8&qid=1543455984&sr=8-1&keywords=Gates+36173

 

I went by the bearing shop. These guys have never not found me a part. They looked through all the parts books and made a few calls. Could not locate a 10mm 6302!


The 5203 in the pic, I have bought from them twice when needed to be changed, over like 6 years or so. Works perfect.


This got me curious, I bought the 6302's off of eBay last week just to see. I pulled some spare pully's off the shelf and pressed one of each each bearing in and swapped out the pully's last Sunday. So far so good.

What's the worst that can happen, have to put original pully's back on and I wasted $10 each on bearing?

What's the best that can happen, found some good cheap replacement bearings

We will see!

(5203 - tensioner, 6302 - upper idler's, I bought extra 6302's, thinking about trying double stacking the lower idler with 2 6302's like someone suggested, just to try it)

 

Sub'd, nice work.

 

Though I would add a little info since I am doing my pulleys and bearings. I also have the Trd supercharger and the bearings are also bad in the pulleys for the supercharger belt. Here are the bearing numbers for future reference.

The bearings in the 2 small pulleys near the supercharger and also the bearing in the supercharger tensioner pulley are 6303-2rs bearings.

The pulleys that are on the bracket in front of idlers # 1 and #2 on the alternator side are these bearing numbers :

Grooved pulley infront of idler #1 is a 6303-2rs bearing.
Flat pulley in front of idler #2 is a 6203 bearing.

 

Anyone bought this kit?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254293157244

Looks to be a good OEM kit as opposed to getting the Gates pulleys.

 

My Tacoma recently started getting the 'jet engine' whine and thought it was my power steering pump which I replaced. It didnt fix it so I ordered the OEM kit in the above post, just now. How much of a trick is just replacing the tensioner pulley vs pulling the whole tensioner. Nothing seems wrong with my tensioner.

 

If genuine, that’s an incredible deal.

 

it's a task. i did my pulleys and paid a good mechanic to do the tensioner...have a bad back and reaching into that space from a lift is a lot better than from a creeper or from above.

I used gates parts.

 

Easiest 'trick' is to just replace the bearing inside the pulley. That's what I have done in all my Toyota products. Of course, this only works if the tensioner is functioning properly. Foturnately, the bearing inside the pulley is a relatively common size - 17X40X17.5 (ID X OD X Width); I replaced mine with a Nachi 5203-2NS. I have found only one vendor selling the tensioner pulley/bearing - Febest #

$44 0187-GRJ200 OEM 16620-31012

0187-GRJ200. There also didn't use to be bearing replacements for the OEM pulleys, but now I see several vendors offering them. Take a peak at my thread, https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...arings-in-the-idler-tensioner-pulleys.480961/

 

Update....

eBay pulley bearing officially fried 11/10/2019. I had an extra, pulled the pulley and pressed in a new bearing in about 15 mins. Just wanted to give an update on how long $10 bearings last

 

Mine showed up today, if any of it is fake, it's a dang good one... heck of a buy.

 

Would you mind posting some pics of the markings on the bearings? Hopefully they are genuine. There are really good fake spark plugs, possible that there’s fake bearings as well.

 

I'll post tomorrow

 

Here you go: