98 frontier power steering pulley tensioner arm bent!!

[98frontiernissan]

Hello

My 98 frontier 4-cylinder had been making a bad noise, sort of a metallic, slushy sound. i took a look under the hood, and notice that the power steering idler pulley arm was sort of bent, causing the pulley to be out of line with the belt. the pulley itself spins evenly with no wobble, but it looks like the tensioner arm that it is mounted to is bent. it is pretty thick steel, so it seems like it would take a pretty great amount of force to bend it.
i took the pulley off and it was jammed up, couldn't spin it by hand, but sprayed grease into it and got it spinning again, and the noise seems to have gone away and been replaced by a less alarming squealy sound.


my question is , whether or not the pulley is shot and needs to be replaced, that tensioner arm should be straightened out. is it ok to just take it out and hammer it until it's straight, or will it just go back to its deformed state?

i appreciate any responses.


thanks a lot.