70's power steering pumps pulley nut vs pressed?

[TJ Hopland]

It appears that Lares now makes the bolt on pulleys for Cads in both single and dual groove, you can even pick black or chrome.    I need single groove so I thought I was going to be press on but with Lares making the pulleys for under $30 and I need a new pump anyway seems like there isn't a reason to go bolt on?    Pumps seem to be readily available in both styles for about the same price.   Actually if you need the pulley bolt on looks much easier to find. 

I have only dealt with a few bolt on ones and always had issues with them coming loose.   They were not cars I bought new so the issue could have been caused before I got them.  Press on stuff other than the hassle of on and off I have not had issues with.   If I go bolt on now it will be a new Lares pump and new Lares pulley so should not be a problem? 

[Cape Cod Fleetwood]

Make sure that replacement pully isn't plastic, have plastic parts.
I just had a remanufactured Lares pump installed, and reused the old (dual) pully from the original pump.
You think the pumps are readily available? When I was looking only Summit Racing had them, and they only
had 4 in stock.

[TJ Hopland]

Lares website says the pulleys are steel.     I'm actually seeing more places with the threaded ones that say ships today than the later pressed on ones which I would have thought were more popular/ common.    Mine isn't the banjo style tank which is what I was assuming was the issue you maybe ran into but even those look to be showing as available at the moment so maybe you just needed one at the wrong time?

[Cape Cod Fleetwood]

Lares website says the pulleys are steel.     I'm actually seeing more places with the threaded ones that say ships today than the later pressed on ones which I would have thought were more popular/ common.    Mine isn't the banjo style tank which is what I was assuming was the issue you maybe ran into but even those look to be showing as available at the moment so maybe you just needed one at the wrong time?

Maybe it is/was unique to the year? 1970
NAPA, AutoZone, Advance, O'Reilly, RockAuto - everyone had them in stock. Then I needed one, and only Summit
had them. The story the chains gave me was The Flu had stopped/slowed the remanufacturing process, whatever.
I got one, its in, I paid more than I should have, and its fabulous.

I too considered changing the pully, 'cause why not, you're right there. The pulley's I saw for that model were plastic, had plastic parts, so we decided to just reuse the old one, physically it looks fine.

[Cadman-iac]

  Unless it's damaged from the wrong tools or procedures to remove it, your original pulley should be fine. The press on style requires a special tool in order to remove it without any damage, and to reinstall it.
The bolt on pulley is a simple process, as the description indicates. The only issue with these would be if there's any rust between it and the shaft.

On a side note, if you are doing this yourself and it's a press on design, if you are familiar with these pumps and you don't have the special tools to remove/ replace the pulley, it is possible to disassemble the pump and rebuild it without removing the pulley. It requires that you begin at the rear of the pump and once all the pieces are extracted, the shaft with the pulley can be removed from the pump body from the front. Then it's possible to replace the seal and bushing/ bearing, and then reassemble the pump in reverse order.
I've done that on a few pumps before I invested in the tool to remove and replace the press on pulleys.

Rick

[TJ Hopland]

I suspect the issues I had in the past with the bolt ons were maybe caused by someone not getting the bolt tight enough so they wobbled a bit and wore the pulley and or shaft.   

I'm currently running a dual but the rest of the engine is single so I was thinking since it seems they are available I would switch to a single just to better match the rest.   

I have the press tools.  Those seem like the kind of thing if you work on cars you just have to have.  Pretty much anything with power steering after the mid 70's used em and if you have anything with a vacuum pump those use the same tool. I don't remember what it was on but I had a water pump that used that too.

[TJ Hopland]

I may now have some time to further research this project because while looking at my fluid shelf I discovered I apparently never tried out the Lucas treatment I bought last year.  I doubt it will stop the leaks but maybe it will slow them down a bit.  It was about 50* yesterday and the stuff barely poured out of the bottle. 

[Cape Cod Fleetwood]

I may now have some time to further research this project because while looking at my fluid shelf I discovered I apparently never tried out the Lucas treatment I bought last year.  I doubt it will stop the leaks but maybe it will slow them down a bit.  It was about 50* yesterday and the stuff barely poured out of the bottle.

Its your car, but personally I wouldn't use stuff like that. It will gum up your entire steering system, even the parts that are fine. Live with the leak, top it off as necessary, or replace the faulty part. MHO.

[TJ Hopland]

My box and pump are both leaking so need to be replaced anyway so I got nothing to loose but what I payed for the stuff which wasn't much more than regular fluid.   It was getting to the point where I had to fill it more than the gas tank so I do really need to get some new parts on order.   

[Cape Cod Fleetwood]

My box and pump are both leaking so need to be replaced anyway so I got nothing to loose but what I payed for the stuff which wasn't much more than regular fluid.   It was getting to the point where I had to fill it more than the gas tank so I do really need to get some new parts on order.

May as well replace the high pressure and return lines too, they're really cheap and probably have as many miles on
them as the other parts. I had all that done when Michael replaced the pump. And as long as the belts are coming off, good time to replace those too, cheap parts. RockAuto had Gates belts for under $10 each. You won't have to do this again once its done.