Had to remove the coolant overflow/washer fluid bottle/upper half of fan shroud yesterday. I had poured a gallon of really old washer fluid in and found out it had a bunch of black mold bits floating in it. I was afraid it would clog the washer lines, so I pulled it off and sprayed it out with heavy water pressure.

While it was off, I popped off the belt and spun all the pulleys by hand. The tensioner pulley is a pretty new ebay unit, so it was good. The idler pulley did feel like it was in the beginning stages of drying out. Instead of a new pulley or fussing with pressing in new bearings, I used a very tiny jeweler's flathead screwdriver to pop off the plastic bearing seal.... added new grease with my finger and pressed it back on. The trick to this is to not damage the tiny rubber flap that spans the circumference of the seal. You kinda have to slide the screwdriver sideways until it gets beneath the seal, rather than jamming it under. Furthermore, you want to work from the inside edge of the seal or the doughnut hole, if that describes it better. If you damage the outer edge, it will leak when the centrifugal force pushes the grease towards it... the inside edge, not so much.

Anyway, I don't think I'll ever do an electric fan conversion to replace the mechanical fan. I like the stock heavy duty cooling setup that comes with the tow pkg. The combination of an electric and mechanical fan is boss, in my book. I just like regreasing to keep the parasitic loss to a minimum and make the bearings last indefinitely.

 

IDK about on the 4.7 . But on the pushrod motors, if that center idler fails, it takes out the alternator and the accessory bracket and the inner bushing that the idler rides on. Not to mention fills the engine bay with aluminum shards.

 

I'm cheap but the idler and tensioner bearings are $5 at a jobber. Install with a Hammer and socket.

 

That's crazy. I think the most would happen on the 4.7 is the belt breaks, but who knows?

Not a matter of being cheap. It makes no sense to run your pulleys till they squeak and have to deal with bearings, when it takes 5 minutes to pop some grease in them.

 

Nice. Anything to save a buck always helps.

 

On the pushrod motors, the center idler overlaps the bottom of the alternator. When the bearing seizes and shatters, the pulley will ride back and cut a groove into the alternator, and eventually into the windings. A guy in the dakota FB group just had this happen. While it's walking back, the pulley also eats away at the face of the bracket as well as the inner shoulder, which is what happened on mine. Now I have a large fender washer between the bearing/pulley and accessory bracket to prevent further damage.

 

And there you have it... the best reason for keeping the pulley bearings lubed.