Drive belts for Serpentine engines - there is one that I can

DEVONMAN · Post by **DEVONMAN** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 4:03 pm

Remember if you are putting a tensioner into the system, it should be on the left side of the engine (looking from the front). This means it should be after the crank pulley and not before. Otherwise the crank pulley force will tend to loosen the belt under load.

jenko · Post by **jenko** » Wed Oct 05, 2016 7:22 am

DEVONMAN wrote:Remember if you are putting a tensioner into the system, it should be on the left side of the engine (looking from the front). This means it should be after the crank pulley and not before. Otherwise the crank pulley force will tend to loosen the belt under load.

That's a very good point.....I'll post a pic of the set up, but the tensioner I've used on the right of the pulley is not actually acting as a tensioner. It's pointing towards the crank, but the tensioner acts as a nice bracket and pulley wheel (and they are 20 quid new delivered

James 33 · Post by **James 33** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 3:55 am

Here's my set up using a belt from a Nissan Navaro. Like I say not ran it up yet though.

SimpleSimon · Post by **SimpleSimon** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 9:33 am

James 33 wrote:Here's my set up using a belt from a Nissan Navaro. Like I say not ran it up yet though.

That should work great James

jenko · Post by **jenko** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 12:36 pm

Here is a pic of the set up I now have...just waiting for the poly v belt to arrive......The tensioner on the right of the pic will not act as a tensioner, the tension comes from the one on the left just under the alternator.

garrycol · Post by **garrycol** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 1:25 pm

Why didn't you just put bolt on a pulley in the hole where your right hand tensioner is as I did in my pic on page 1? Are you sure you will have enough contact between the water pump pulley and the belt?

Garry

jenko · Post by **jenko** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 8:47 pm

I looked at this....but that chassis member got in the way of the right hand holes, and the left hand ones were too close to the water pump. The tensioner bracket dropped the pulley clear of all the obstacles (more luck than judgement). The water pump has around 50% contact, no idea id this will be ok...trial and error. The belt arrived today....Too short!.

garrycol · Post by **garrycol** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 2:15 am

jenko wrote:The belt arrived today....Too short!.

Belts are available at most local auto parts stores - I just ran a string around the pulleys and then took that length to the shop and bought a 7 rib belt of the appropriate length. The first was a little too short so back to the shop to exchange for the next bigger one - no issues.

Good luck with it - oh even with the tensioner pulled right off it is still difficult to get the belt on, when the tensioner is released it moves half of its range - also the belt needs to be tight when new as it will stretch quite a bit with use.

Garry

jenko · Post by **jenko** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 10:52 am

Finally got the belt to fit.....So it's now pretty much completed (the mock up), it now comes apart so I can actually build the engine up.

A few pics to show the belt lay out: