If you have u/d pulleys and have having problems, please chime in

If you have u/d pulleys and are having problems, please chime in

Hey guys, I've had my pulleys since April. I've never gotten the chance to fix the little problems they have given me since install.

Problems:

- Windshield wipers don't work when lights are on, you have to turn on the highbeams then they will work. :shrug:

- Head Lights will dim when stopped.

Well yesterday I was in stop and go traffic for about an hour... well my Anti-Lock light goes on out of nowhere and 5 min. later... the car dies. So yeah, there I was blocking traffic in my dead mustang. I had to push it into a parking lot, gladly a good samaritan helped me out pushing it up a slight incline. (damn these things are heavy as ****). Well my dad ends up coming and giving my car a jump start. Problem solved.

My question is, is my battery dying or are my pulleys f'ng up with my alternator. What would be the best way to fix this?

Thanks
 
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U/D's can affect charging. Under 12.6 volts and you are discharging. And when the battery gets ready to crap out, systems will start shutting down.

And the puter can start shutting down non-essential systems to conserve power.

I would check out the entire charging system before driving it.

The MF switch might be having a short of sorts with the wipers and low/high beams.

Good luck.
 
yes putting the stock pullie back on will or shall i say should help you out w/ the charging issue.then again i can say how was the condition of your battery and charging (ie.. alt..ect..)system before the swap or currently. AS for the wiper issue i would look at that seperately from the charging issues. good luck
 
I had to swap back to the stock alternator pulley because I was slowly draining my batteries. I had to replace one about every 6 months. Now I have the u/d pulley back on, but with a slightly higher idle speed, and a 200amp alternator, so it's not so much of an issue anymore.

The wipers has gotta be seperate. In my brother's old truck, (94 F150), his wipers wouldn't work with his blinker on. It's probably the switch, that thing controls like 9285234 different things. Mine went out and the turn signals stopped working. I'd look at it first.
 
Does your car have an AODE?Before I did my tranny swap I tried using pulley's with the auto and had the same problem.I tried new batteries,power cable from the alt. new battery cables and a new alt..nothing worked the car kept discharging and dying out.Every time it died I had to jump it.I even paid Laroccas to try and figure it out and they told me some cars just wont run with u/d pulleys and I had to put my stockers back on.The pulleys work fine with the TKO though.....
 
BDawk brings up a good point. The stick guys can run a higher idle than an auto should.

I did not venture the same thoughts with the SN's, but with the fox guys, it seems to really depend upon the car. Just a hair bump or difference in idle speed (which can result simply from a timing adjustment) can make a difference.

Good luck.
 
This is what's always scared me away from underdrive pulleys- well, this and the cooling issues they can create as well.

Thanks for the information, it seems lots of guys pretend that the pulleys aren't causing problems when they are.

I'm not saying that everyone running underdrives has problems; just that there is a good chance you'll have issues with them.
 
Most of the peeps I've seen talk about pulleys say at night, they can see the lights dim just a slight amount at idle. Having said that, if anything is not quite right with your electrical/charging system ...
I guess it is possible you may see a prob develope.

Bottom line is ...... everything is turned slower to free up some hp.

Same things could be said about the cooling system as well.

Since you don't get a huge gain from pulleys anyway, I would think if you didn't underdrive everything ... the gain would be so small ... might not be worth the effort of running them.

I've been running them for years with no probs.

Grady