Hey everybody,
I recently purchased underdrive pullies for my 03 Expy with the 4.6, has any body installed a set of these pullies that might have some tips or advice on how to make the installation go smooth? I know I will have to use a harmonic balancer puller to remove it, how do I prevent the harmonic balancer from spinning when it's time to remove the bolt? Same goes for the alternator nut. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

Isn't your pulley just held on to the front of the HB with 4 bolts?

 

If you mean the OEM pully, no its a one piece with pully intergrated into the HB. If you mean the new underdrive pully, no the new underdrive pully is bolted to the back of the OEM HB pully.

 

Are the pullies that you got the "piggyback" style that bolt your damper onto the front of the new underdrive? If so,do not install them. By moving the damper farther out,you increase the lateral load on the front main bearing,and will cause premature wear on that bearing,along with bad harmonics that can cause oil pump issues.
JL

 

I don't know if it is the same as on my 96 mustang gt with the 4.6 but on the oposite side from the starter on the bottom side there was a rubber plug that could be removed. I then put a deep well socket on one of the bolts holding the torque converter on and this kept the crank from turning. As far as the alternator goes I have used an impact wrench to loosen that nut up in the past. As for the underdrive that has you piggybacking the harmonic balancer, I agree that you should avoid that type.

 

Thanks for the info guys,
For the past two days I did some more research on the whole piggyback pullys and found no supporting evidence to say that they are the bad way to go. For evey negative comment I found there was a positive one. All I found was people saying not to use them but gave no reason nor evidence to why not to use them and they all say the same thing which was their opinion. When I went to venders that sold underdrive pullys there was no say nor evidence that one is better than the other. I even looked for personnal stories of how piggyback pullys failed or damaged vehicles.... with no luck, but all I found was people saying how long their piggyback style pullys have been on there vehicle without any problems. A friend is using both piggyback on his T-Bird and the type that comes with a new dampener on his F-150, he sees no difference between the both types other than one was little bit more in price. The piggyback pullys that he has on the T-Bird have been on for 10+ years with no problems.
I usually research the product that I plan on purchasing, this time I did more research than usual because of all negative opinions. Like I mentioned earlier, the one thing that I found in all the forums that I visited, was the IMO blurp. I guess it's up to the individual to gather all the information and make his own decision on which type of pully they are going to go with. IMO

 

I have BBK underdive pulleys on my Expy for about 3 years and 20k miles. No problems to report... While I agree with Johnny, I have heard bad things about piggyback style pulleys destroying crank bearings(especially on mustangs) I never had a problem.

That being said, Underdrive pulleys do not provide big gains at all. I noticed slightly better throttle response and maybe an increase of 1 MPG on average.

Mezkin: IMO money spent on underdrive pulleys could be appropriated toward some electric fans instead.

Also a tip: when installing the pulleys, always use a new crankshaft bolt(usually included with the kit) and put lotsa' RTV silicone into the crankshaft pulley keyway so you don't run into oil seepage down the road... Good Luck!

 

Green thanks for the tip,
The MAC Performance kit that I went with did come with a new bolt, also I did the electric fans swap about 3 weeks ago.

 

Can you do any pics or write up on the e-fans thing? I'm getting ready to put the Troyer Dual 16" kit in my 2004 Expedition. I've read the write up where FTE put them in the Roush F-150, but I'm wondering how much that install varies from my 04.

 

Heymrdj
You might want to measure your radiator, the 14" fans I installed fit only after I removed part of the lip on both sides of the radiator supports. I didn't go with a kit, I bought the fans and controler seperate and used the instructions from Troyer and from Ford F150.net as basic instructions. When I removed the radiator cover you can see the front of the radiator support that is where I ran the wires that went to the battery, ignition and a/c wire. You have two wires at the a/c comp one black and I belive gray, I think, splince into the non black wire. You might want to check all your fasteners around a week after you complete the install to make sure they are still tight. Here is a link to the post I did when I did mine.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...fans-help.html

Here are some more pics;

running the wires


on the passenger side of the Expy there is 3 big harnesses that connect to a silver box


below the middle harness there is another small harness, you can splice into the red and green striped wire for your ignition wire that the controller requires.


Hope this helps, if not let me know & I will take more pics. Good luck and post some pics of youe install.

 

I asked Troyer and they said the dual 16" would work, they have it listed that it would work. None the less, i'll hit them up again before i make the go at it.

 

You might have a bigger radiator due to the 5.4, I have a 4.6 on my Expy. That's if they have different radiators, I don't know if they do. Just a guessing.

 

heymrdj
Check this site out expeditionforum.com Here is a topic where sombody tried to install two 16" fans on a 03 Expy and finds out they were not the right size. There is some pics to show how much larger the fans are.
expedition forum - E-fans