So I started up my car this morning and I hear and knocking sound. I've been hearing this the last few weeks at cold starts in the morning, but it was louder and worst than any other time. I turned off the car and opened the hood to find out that my serpentine belt was shredded. I bought a new belt and before installing I did a lot of reading here and found that similar problems of some fellow members here was found to be either the idler pulley and/or tensioner. I will also be replacing those too just so I don't end up shredding the new belt.

However, I was concern of what may also be wrong, so I checked all the pulleys for movement and free-play while the belt was off. I found that the pulley on the a/c compressor has free-play and moves as I wobble it back and forth. My question is: Is this normal on the a/c compressor pulley? I've been searching the internet and reading the forum all day long with no luck of finding any information as to whether that is normal for the a/c compressor pulley or not. Also, I've searched to purchase that pulley and it doesn't seem to be sold by itself without the whole unit of the a/c compressor so I am clueless/confuse/concern about the situation. I have the 1998 XJR. Would someone please help me with this? Thanks much in advance.

 

My AC pulley have also quite a bit of free-play. But everything works just fine and runs really quiet.

 

Hmm...must be normal then. Thanks