Squeakiest pulley EVER
 

Has anyone tried replacing the air conditioning idler pulley (the one that is bolted into the block above the tensioner)?? None of the part stores carry that exact one and all of the dealerships are charging $55 for a new one!! I thought this was a common part? Are there any alternatives? I've already tried repacking the bearing with grease, but I think it got worse. Please help so that I don't have to spend my gas money to replace a stupid plastic wheel

Yes I've changed it. My noise is still there. I am beginning to hope I have the wrong belt size (I have a underdrive pulley so it's not a stock belt). I have replaced the a/c idler and the a/c tensioner also and the noise still persists. The only thing left is the a/c compressor and the belt. I've already changed the belt before and it seemed like it helped, but the noise came back. So either I need a smaller belt or my a/c compressor is slowly kicking the bucket? Who knows.

Anyway I bit the bullet and got the pulley from the dealership.

Don't you work at a dealership? employee discount? How much did you end up paying?

To the OP, I'm assuming you verified where the noise is coming from?
If the bearing in that pulley moves free and has little to no play I wouldn't suspect it to make noise.
I'd look into an alignment problem. That was making my AC belt noisey.

I greased my pullies, changed the belt (that works for a few days).
The tensioner was crooked, I took the bushings out and rotated them 180 degrees, problem solved.

I don't work at a dealership but have a decent hookup. I think it was $45 or so.

Tell me more about the tensioner...mine doesn't look crooked, but how do you tell? What bushings did you take out?

I didn't take pictures of it apart, I didn't think it'd work.
Theres a weird bushing that seems to be made of a teflon coated copper mesh, and also a plastic bushing. They are under the cap thats under the mount bolt.
Looking at the pic it's pretty obvious that it was very crooked.
I'll see if I can edit this shortly with a pic of what it looks like now.

Added the pic, doesn't look very impressive but it hasn't made a noise since I did that to it.

Try taking it to an electric motor shop,(they also rebuild alternators/starters) they may be able to replace the bearing on the pulley. Also, I fought with a squeak for several days before I figured out that it wasnt a pulley at all.
I had a PCV valve clogged and it was making a squealing sound that sounded exactly like a pulley. It only did it at idle or light cruise, under high vacuum. Next time it does it remove the oil cap to relieve the pressure, that way you would know its the PCV. Unless you have already isolated the problem to a pulley for sure. It can be very difficult to trace down those noises.

Good luck

related ?
 

pretty sure the clutch on my a/c compressor is gone bad , it is scrapping against the compressor pulley, when i went to remove belt though i noticed when i tried to let out the slack from the a/c tensioner pulley that it didnt spring back like tensioner usually do, it just turned giving me slack but stayed in that position but quite firmly, is this normal or is this tensioner pulley bad also, another quick question until i have money to buy another compressor can i simply remove a/c belt to stop the scrapping noise and drive the car like it doesnt have a/c without doing any damage, from my observation thats all the a/c drive belt does is run the compressor right or wrong. 00 z28