Me too. I pick up my reman today at NAPA. $50, including core. It's 50% of the cost of buying the whole assembly, so I'm good with that price.
If belt misalignment was the cause, then it sure took 49 years in order for it to get there, so it's hard to say that that really is a problem. .07" may be within "allowable" variance for the distance, but I'm not an expert on belts at all. I'll work on alignment when I go hook it back up and look at some options to get it a little closer.
The slight wobble of the pulley I am least concerned with, but if you guys want to see it:
The problem is that these pulleys are not available anymore. The only Saginaw pulleys that are available now are for the 383/440/Hemis. You can use them for the small block, but you have to buy a $20 spacer kit. Getting sort of non-original at that point.
They are supposedly easy to bend, but I'm afraid I'd make it worse. I called a machine shop and they didn't sound excited at all, and said that ".030 is about the best we're going to do."
I just read your posts and not just throwing an opinion in with no background on the subject.
I read where you took the belt off and the noise went away, BUT,,,
THE very first thing I do when I have a noise like that on something belt driven is while the engine is running touch a bar of soap on both sides of the belt and see if the noise changes or goes away.
Of course some caution is in order here.:D
(knocking type sound are usually the belt popping in the pulley groove in my experience)
That belt misalignment should be solved as well, but the soap on the belt will positively eliminate the belt being the problem in only a few seconds.
