V-belt tensioner

[dislocated1]

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.

[ntsqd]

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.

[billymanfroy]

Skyler,

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...

Hope this helps, and good luck in Parker!

Billy

[dislocated1]

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.

[billymanfroy]

OK then, sorry about the long (wrong) post.

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.

[ntsqd]

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.

[partybarge_pilot]

Too much load for 1 belt.

[ZTFab]

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...

[ntsqd]

Too much load for 1 belt.
For that one anyway. Wider belts can handle more power, but also consume more power in their operation.

[DMSRACE]

So what you guys are saying is, even with more belt wrap, it still wont work?

[Ryan_P]

Kevin,

Maybe if you get a pulley to where it is grooved low enough to where the entire belt will sit inside in the groove, then it might work.

I agree with what ZTFab is saying. Also, try running a size smaller belt, like a 1/4'' to 1/2'' smaller, that also might make a difference. Also the type of belt that you are running will have a difference......what manufacturer are you running? Some will stretch more than others, depending on what material they are using to make the belts. I recommend Gates for their V slits and syntheitc material, we carry them at work and if that is that you are running, let me know the belt number and I will see what the next size down would be, to best fit your need.

-Ryan

[DMSRACE]

The belt is deep in the groove as we custom made a pulley for it already, we run GAtes, but going to change to another brand of which I was told was better...

[dislocated1]

I ended up running a tensioner pulley off of a 5.0 with a custom bracket and it seems alot better. We had problems with the Alt getting to full voltage and now on fire-up it has full voltage, no squeaks and no heat build up on the belt itself. The tensioner pulley is stationary and I still tension the Alt with the turnbuckle, we are testing this Fri to see if it will hold up in the dez because running it in the shop is not exactly race conditions. Hopefully this works but it is still not the best situation with running the P.S off the Alt but space is very limited in there.

[shrek]

Sky---

Try adjusting the Flux Capacitor to full power............I heard that will solve all kinds of problems......

Shrek

[dislocated1]

We have the special flux-capacitor on order that runs on trash, that way I can clean up the shop and do top-secret back to the future burnouts around the complex

[DMSRACE]

Our real secert is the Landfield edition Sucker Snout..

[Dave_G]

The belt is deep in the groove as we custom made a pulley for it already.

Did you make the pulley groove angle to the correct spec? Most people don't know this but the total included angle of a V-belt groove changes based on the pitch diameter of the pulley. Basically, a smaller pulley runs a steeper groove angle verses a larger diameter pulley.

Getting the maximum degrees of wrap around the pulleys is also very important. Here's a good example of "maximum wrap" on a setup I built for the overall 4 wheel winner at last years baja 1000. ;-)
http://ourworld.cs.com/Dogs4birds/Belt1.JPG

[dislocated1]

Holy Crap Dave that is beautiful!! The Idler pulley I put on looks like the one in the pic between the P.S. and the Alt. It deflects the belt about 1" down around the pulley and gave me about 30 degrees more belt wrap. We took it to Lucerne yesterday and put quite a few miles on it on the MORE course and it worked great, no slippage and none of the heat build up that we had prior.

[ZTFab]

[QUOTE=dislocated1]Holy Crap Dave that is beautiful!!


Took the words right out of my mouth....

glad to hear you solved the problem....
You guys (DMS) gonna be at Parker?

[DMSRACE]

Dave, please no more pics like that, it makes most of us jealous...lol...Skyler and the boys did a great job fixing the problem and we thank you all for your help..

Kevin