Just wanted to share my experiance installing a Mina Gallary pulley on my 2003 STR. Currently swapping engines in an STR I bought with a blown engine and figured I would do a pulley while I have the engine out.


After debating what pulley to get I settled on a Mina Gallary after emailing them a few questions and getting a discount code from them. Figured what the heck, wanted a steel pulley but I'll give an aluminum one a try.


After reading a few threads about removing the pulley and either needing a special tool or to cut it off I figured I would try a 3 jaw puller and if that didn't work I would cut it off. I didn't care about keeping the pulley as I have another on my second engine if needed, and I didn't want to pay for a tool (or rental). I got a free rental puller from Autozone, it was the 5 ton one that they have, I also installed a button head bolt in the shaft threads to protect the threads.



After lubing/greasing everything I was prepared for a battle to get the pulley off... but after I started cranking on the puller the pulley started coming off with ease, no battling, deforming, cutting, heat, nothing, easy as pie. Not sure if it'll work as easy with the engine in the car, but it works great out of the car.





For installing the Mina pulley you use a power steering pulley installer, again I got a free rental tool from Autozone. Installation was pretty easy, I probably had to put more muscle into installing this pulley than taking the stock one off.




One other thing I wanted to address was belt tension. I know with the Mina pulley you can still use the stock belt, but with it being a little smaller there's a little less tension on the belt. The indicators said it was good, but once the belt wears in it might be out of the good range.




Using what I had around I put the supercharger idler pulley from the other engine on the tentioner since it's slightly bigger. Took a little grinding on the tesioner arm, hat to take about an eighth of an inch off the circle area. Didn't seem to me it would hurt the strength any, but we will see. Btw not sure why Jaguar used smooth pullies on the ribbed side of the belt, I have a therory, but i did read there was a tsb where they changed to groved pullies to address a belt squeal, which I may look into a grooved pulley in the future. Anyways, once I got the pully mounted it worked, the belt just fits and the indicator is just a little past, but should be perfect once the belt breaks in. Guess we'll see what happens.





Have a few other things I'll post as I have time...

 

Is there a reason you can't just heat the pulley up to 400-500 F and using a good oven mitt just slip it on the shaft giving it a good whack with a decent hammer with a piece of wood in between?

 

That may work as well. The instructions from Mina said to use a power steering pulley installer so that's what I did. It went on pretty easy, when I said I fought it more putting the new one on than taking the old one off, it was more of a reference to how easy the stock one came off. Also I don't know about any heat treatment that the pulley may have and and what that temperature might do to it.

 

I wondered about that, too. I think 400F is too hot. Not that I have any special metallurgy knowledge or anything, but I’ve done the thermal expansion trick many times with bearings, etc. Usually 180F (the lowest setting on my oven) is more than adequate. It’s also the perfect temperature setting to keep the serving platter warm when making my famous applesauce pancakes, but as usual, I have digressed.

If you can cool the shaft at the same time, you’ll have even better results. For small parts I’ll stick them in the freezer, but that’s obviously not practical in this situation. You can fill a sturdy plastic bag with ice cubes and that should work.

For the power steering pulley tool, make sure to use a quality name brand. I tried a cheap version from an unnamed discount tool store (rhymes with Arbor Weight) and it barely worked. It kept working loose. I took it back and splurged on a Lisle. It was like night and day.

 

400 f is just fine. If you don't get it hot enough then it will shrink tight too soon and possibly not get all the way onto the shaft.
I don't see how you could cool that shaft in situ unless you had liquid nitrogen. That's too exotic for me. Besides there's a lot of metal mass connected to that shaft. The pulley is minor by comparison.
But do you have an oven close by you shop?

 

I actually have easy access to liquid nitrogen, work with the stuff every day... Oven is in the kitchen 10 feet away. But like I said no real need, the power steering pulley installer worked great and it's free to borrow from the parts stores.

 

Also this is the installer I borrowed from Autozone.

OEM 27031

(sorry it's upside down)

 

My camper has a small propane oven/range combo. That's what I typically use. Unlike the oven in the house, there's no danger of smoking out my residence. Say, for example, if you were to overheat the grease inside a bearing. I do not care to discuss how I learned this...

 

There's a bearing in the pulley that is a press fit on the supercharger's shaft?

Not so sure pressing on an aluminum pulley is the best approach as being softer it may get galled by doing that. Perhaps that's why it was much harder to do than pulling the original off?

 

I have no clue why yours came off so easy..
On my 4.2 08 xkr I used a pulley puller tool, and it was rediculusly hard to take off. I'm a pretty strong guy I think and I was using a two foot extension to be able to crank in that sucker, took forever and I was sweating. Puting it back on was easier than taking it off but still very tough. I never used heat or ice methods.

 

Yeah that's the stories I have read on here and saw deformed pullies after removal. I was prepared to grind it off if needed as I don't need the pulley, but figured I would try the puller and it came right off. Maybe my pulley is on the high side of the tolerance and the shaft on the low side? Or maybe mileage? It only has 46k miles on it, or the dry Arizona environment? Who knows, maybe a little luck since I saving a STR from the junkyard...

 

Be aware that Jaguar redid all the pulley/tensioner stuff and it sounds like you have a mix of that. They went from a double sided ribbed belt to a single sided belt. So that's why there are smooth and ribbed pulleys out there.

Take a look at this thread and you can see the difference in the belts in the pictures.

SC Belt

Have you seen this TSB about the change/upgrade?
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Yeah I read that, mentioned it in the first post. I don't believe parts were mixed since both engines are the same and I have seen many others on the forum like this. The change went from smoth idlers to grooved idlers due to a squeal at cold. It doesn't get too cold here in Arizona, a cold night in the winter might hit 30f, so I'm hoping it won't be an issue.

My theory behind the smooth pulley on the ribbed side of the belt is to reduce supercharger pulley slip. Less wear on the rib sides since the tentioner rides on the tip of the rib where the supercharger rides on the sides of the rib. Also the belt passes by the smooth tensioner pulley right before the supercharger causing the ribs to fluff up a bit creating more pressure in the supercharger pulley grooves. Just a theory could be way off and its just what they had in the parts bin for cheap. But it's the only car I have ever seen do it that way so it's curious for sure.