94 Topaz Idler Pulley partly missing?

My niece has an old 94 Topaz with a 4 cyl automatic...A couple of days
ago she said the car was over heating and hard to steer..I went up
there today and found the serpentine belt was basically
shredded...Looking around and thinking something was froze up I saw
that the smooth flat pulley the belt goes over which is in front of
the water pump (I believe the belt routing diagram called it an idler
pulley) seemed to be half missing..When I say half missing I mean that
it was suppose to be about 1 inch wide (The width of the belt) but it
was in fact not half that width and was off to the side so only half
the belt would rest on it....How could this have happened?..Is there
suppose to be maybe an wider outer rim on this pulley that has somehow
come off?..It looked like it was pretty close to the side wall of the
vehicle so how much of a nightmare is getting this pulley off and
replacing it?..Thanks :-)

I once saw this on a relatives car. I think it was a Chevy, but it might have been a Ford. The plastic pulley had essentially disintegrated. I replaced it with a metal pulley.

Sara Brown wrote:
>
> My niece has an old 94 Topaz with a 4 cyl automatic...A couple of days
> ago she said the car was over heating and hard to steer..I went up
> there today and found the serpentine belt was basically
> shredded...Looking around and thinking something was froze up I saw
> that the smooth flat pulley the belt goes over which is in front of
> the water pump (I believe the belt routing diagram called it an idler
> pulley) seemed to be half missing..When I say half missing I mean that
> it was suppose to be about 1 inch wide (The width of the belt) but it
> was in fact not half that width and was off to the side so only half
> the belt would rest on it....How could this have happened?..Is there
> suppose to be maybe an wider outer rim on this pulley that has somehow
> come off?..It looked like it was pretty close to the side wall of the
> vehicle so how much of a nightmare is getting this pulley off and
> replacing it?..Thanks :-)

--
Mike Walsh

OK..Just as a follow up in case anyone else Google searches for this
problem down the road..Somehow a bolt that is directly behind this
pulley had worked itself loose and the plastic pulley was grinding
against it til half of it was gone and then the belt slipped off and
got torn up