It has come to our attention, after many thrown belts on our truck that we dont not have enough belt wrap around our alt. pulley. Do any of you guys/gals know of an aftermakret V-belt tensioner or a stock one that would work we are running a 2.3 4-banger. thanks alot.
Last edited by dislocated1; January 25th, 2005 at 14:37.
Skyler Gambrell
"But our shenanigans are cheeky and fun!!!!"
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V-belts normally are not tensioned on their back sides like serpintine belts are. I suspect, but do not know for sure, that if you do this you will see short to very short belt life.
I take it that repositioning things to get more wrap is not an option.
As an experiment why don't you use your spare cam belt tensioner and rig it in place. See if the belt(s) will live long enough and that the whole concept solves the problem.
If it does, then any sort of roller should work. Could even just use a sealed bearing.
We never had any trouble with the belt falling off, but we had to tighten the crap out of the alternator using the heim/turnbuckle gizmo underneath. Of course, this only applies if you left the accessories where they were, and kept the big ol' idler near the pwr steering pump.
The other thing to check is to make sure the crank/water pulleys line up perfectly with the alt and pwr steering pulley. We sometimes had to adjust the pwr steering pump pulley in or out with a puller to line everything up just right. This is also why we left the idler flat with no grooves.
We did break off that goofy stock pwr steering bracket once, so we had to link a bunch of zip ties together around the crank and water pump to go 10 miles to the next pit. Worked like a charm, but it obviously wasn't charging and had no pwr steering.
Some people insist on multiple v belts so that they can lose one or the other and keep going, but it was pretty difficult to find the right stuff to convert it all over with the room we had. Esslinger, Racer Walsh, Race Engineering, etc. sell pulley kits, but they are pricey and I'm pretty sure it'll require a lot more work than it sounds...
It is a little different that the set-up you had, we had to move the P.S. over to the pass side to clear the Dry-sump, so the P.S. is driven off the Alt with a small belt and the Alt has a longer belt that goes around the crank pulley, water pump and the alt pulley. We can't seem to get the Alt belt to live. I had a cheesy MSPaint pic to explain it better but I cant seem to upload it.
Skyler Gambrell
"But our shenanigans are cheeky and fun!!!!"
I have seen on midget cars (the reason the esslinger heads were invented) where they run NO accessories, and run the fuel pump (alcohol injection requires A LOT more volume and pressure), water pump, and oil pump off the same dry-sump style pump that is driven by the timing belt on the same side that you have the alt/pwr steering. Don't know if it's feasible, or if you could do it on the other side. Just throwing out ideas.
Normally 90* is enough wrap to drive most anything you normally put on an engine. If it isn't, it's likely the belt is too small (narrow).
Except when you need to do somthing like that. Now the alt belt has to transmit power for both. It's like the alt. suddenly needs a LOT more power to turn it. If there is room, try going to a two belts to drive the alt. I know that means moving stuff around, but with two belts you won't have to run nearly the belt tension. Which means all of the accessory bearings will live longer.
Jones is one company that makes cog belt drives like those on dry sump pumps. There are others.
The OE's went to sepentine systems partly b/c they transmit more power with less friction than V-belts do. Serp belts come in a wide range of lengths, you could build your own. Know that alignment with a serp is more critical than with V-belts.
Have you considered going to a deeper grooved pulley...I don't think tension is the problem but maybe the amount of belt that sits in the pulley itself....as the rpm's come up, the belt begins to stretch and move...if there isn't enough belt inside the groove of the pulley then it will pop right off....I used to have the same prob on my '63 Nova's alternator...changed to a deep groove pulley and the problem went away...
Originally Posted by partybarge_pilot
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