New LS1 Owners - Newbie Tech - water pump ? belt jumping

hey guys so about a week ago i noticed my belt jumpin a couple grooves sometimes on the belt tensioner sometimes on the power steering pump. i been doin alot of searches and i found that the stock belt tensioners are garbage.. so i had planned on shelling out the 160 or so for the comp cams belt tensioner.. im lucky i have a summit racing warehouse 3 miles away. on my way i started smelling coolant.. hoping it was the car in front of me but no hit a red light started seeing smoke water pump had diff plans for me i guess so i shelled out 160 for that instead qand went home and threw on the new one..., so getting to my quistion its been a couple days since i swapped water pump but hesitant to go passed 3500 rpm cause i dopnt want the belt flying off.. so can a bad water pump make the belt jump?? i still plan on getting the comp cams tensioner but i gotta get another 160. thanks for the help and if anyone has used the comp cams tensioner how is it

The belt jumps due to the tensioner, and driving style. I still run a stocker but I run a SLP U/D pulley which is high walled, so far so good, I have bout 48k on the car and never an issue. May still swap to a solid tensioner in the future.

The pump can go out for a multitude of reasons, but basically swap that pUMP (which you did), and the tensioner and add a new belt and be done with it.

Unless the pulley on the pump is sooo bad it could wobble it off, most likely its a tensioner issue.

How many miles on the motor???

Yea i didnt think the water pump would makr the belt jump but when i got the old one out it had almost a good half inch of play front to back sounded terrible when u spun it. And also i did just buy belts figured id do both belts since i was in there so i got the gatorback ones.. and so far so good but its always on my mind now.. thats why i figured id get the belt tensioner it also comes with the high wall pulley. And put my mind at rest. As for the miles i just hit 125,000

Do a search for The dayco 3.8 Buick tensioner pulley. It's a little larger and will help keep the belt tighter. And it's a lot cheaper.