Black dust and rusty Pulley

[rmurray]

I am getting a lot of black dust under the engine cover and on the front of the motor. After reading several other forums, it appears to be belt dust. I can see the outer edge of my belt is a little bit frayed, so I’m sure that’s the issue. My power steering pump pulley is rusted and very rough around the edges. Everything else seems OK, so I am hoping this is the issue. I was able to go to my local Auto parts store and pick up a Dorman 300–200 Pulley for $20. It is an exact replacement for the factory pulley even though you will not find any cross-reference to the part number. I was able to use a loaner pulley puller to remove and replace the pulley in less than 15 minutes. I thought I’d throw it out there just in case anyone is having similar issues. I have a 2004 GXI.

 

[Scott Danforth]

doubt you can find the pulley at an auto parts store. wire brush your pulleys and paing

 

[jerryjerry05]

He said he found it and installed it.

The dust and odd wearing of the belt?? Wrong belt?

 

[ESGWheel]

I had the exact same issue with 'belt dust' and it absolutely was the rusty PS Pump pulley. For me the problem was manifesting itself as a stalling issue when coming off power. Be cruising along at 3000 RPM and down around 1100 or so, would stall out 8 out of 10 times. Frustrating. Into the repair shop a few times for this issue and no codes, all sensors checked out, etc. They even took it for a test drive, twice, and could not locate the issue. And while I knew I had belt flaking issues, I carried a spare, so my focus was on this stalling issue > dangerous when coming into a channel and stalling out.

Not satisfied, I decided to do the shotgun approach and start replacing the various sensors on my 2005 VP 5.0 GXi. First up the Throttle Position Sensor. No change, still stalls. Next the Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) sensor. Pulled out the old one and wow was it caked with belt dust! What the heck? I pulled the spark arrestor and while I had cleaned this end of last season, it was full of this belt dust. Turns out the pulley had rusted even more over the winter and was really chewing up the belt causing the belt dust to get sucked into the air intake. My guess is that the dust was building up over time on the MAP sensor and it finally reached a tipping point, hence the stalling issue.

So new MAP sensor, new pulley and all is good. No more stalling, no more belt dust. And just for giggles, I cleaned up the ole MAP and put it back in and no stalling. So now I have a spare.

 

[cptbill]

Always had PS belt and power steering pulley issues with the Larson(twin 5.7 gsi)always carried spare belts and sand paper to fix the PS pulley, didn't matter weather you used VP parts or adapted truck parts

 

[jerryjerry05]

Had the same problem on a 260 from 88?
Changed to an aluminum pulley from Summit Racing.

 

[CherokeeVol]

I have had a similar issue with my Volvo Penta 8.1GI-F in a 2005 Glastron GX255. I noted rust on the PS pump pulley and thought it was just abrasive enough to kick off some dust but not bad enough to fray the belt (yet). I hit it with a shop vac every start of season to keep it from building up too much. I also carry an extra belt just in case. I have also noted a whine after long runs and then trolling at no wake speed coming into the marina. It doesn't increase or decrease with RPMs. I think I identified the sound coming from the PS pump. Did you have that issue as well?

 

[cptbill]

Yea the pumps ended up losing fluid through pin hole leaks in the ps fluid reservoir always kept some of those gm metric ps reservoirs at home to be refinished then swapped them out, after the first couple I got pretty good at it