The V8 Owners Forum -

I was meaning last in the respect to taking power from the drive belt so after the accessories have taken power and stretched the belt the sprung tensioner should be on the slack side of the belt/crank pulley i.e the right hand side when standing in front of the engine.

Re: alignment
I don't suppose you can just fit washers behind the alternator bracket? or maybe you could find an alternator pulley with different offset? or does your current alternator pulley have different offset front and back so you could reverse it?

Tom.

SuperV8 wrote:I was meaning last in the respect to taking power from the drive belt so after the accessories have taken power and stretched the belt the sprung tensioner should be on the slack side of the belt/crank pulley i.e the right hand side when standing in front of the engine.

Re: alignment
I don't suppose you can just fit washers behind the alternator bracket? or maybe you could find an alternator pulley with different offset? or does your current alternator pulley have different offset front and back so you could reverse it?

Tom.

Did you mean left side when standing in front of the engine?

Crap, sorry yes, left side when standing in front of the engine!
Looks like i'm failing at multi tasking

Tom,

Left as per standard TVR setup in picture above.

Re: alignment. never that simple as the JE (actually a Morgan Plus alternator bracket is a tad too far out. I temporarily removed one of the 7 ribs but it was still fraying so that's why I have 5. One thing leads to another so altering alternator bracket means altering my belt adjuster and now I've got to make up a new idler bracket and align that. Winter's project!

I think the alignment is critical, its going to put all sorts of weird loads on the belt if not spot on. Also, I agree about the 7v belts...much more surface area.
Not sure if you have seen the latest other post on this subject (in the engine area), but I sort of used your idea of having a tensioner on the right. But, the pulley is not acting as a tensioner, it's just holding the belt up to gain more contact on the water pump. The tensioner sits on the left. Must be said, this set up has not been tried yet!, but the position of the tensioner on the right was designed so it's at the start of it's travel and shouldn't move.

jenko wrote:but the position of the tensioner on the right was designed so it's at the start of it's travel and shouldn't move.

jenko, would moving that tensioner a bit more than 90 degrees clockwise not give you a LOT more coverage of the water pump pulley?
It wouldn't interfere height-wise under the bonnet, but would give you the security of over 200 degrees of pulley contact.

You could get tons more wrap on the water pump and crank pulley as follows:-

Run the belt straight from the alternator to the right hand pulley, then round it and then up and over and round the water pump pulley, then down round and under the crank pulley and then up to the tensioner and back to the alternator. It means finding a longer belt though. Can't tell from the picture if the run from the alternator to the right hand pulley will clash with other things like the top hose.

Jenko. Just looking at your photo and wonder if that's the final position for the steering rack. It looks very high compared to the level of the track rod ends which will cause massive bump steer. It may just be the angle of the photo.

It is the final position, but...the car is jacked up off the floor, so the suspension has dropped. When the car is flat everything levels up nicely. Track rod ends are pretty much in lie with rack.......

jenko wrote:It is the final position, but...the car is jacked up off the floor, so the suspension has dropped. When the car is flat everything levels up nicely. Track rod ends are pretty much in lie with rack.......

Ok, the photo must be deceiving. Just out of interest can your steering arms be swapped from side to side so that the track rod end is on top of the arm?

DEVONMAN wrote:

jenko wrote:It is the final position, but...the car is jacked up off the floor, so the suspension has dropped. When the car is flat everything levels up nicely. Track rod ends are pretty much in lie with rack.......

Ok, the photo must be deceiving. Just out of interest can your steering arms be swapped from side to side so that the track rod end is on top of the arm?

I had a quick look....and in theory it would be possible. That said, Westfield have been using the same set up for may years with no problems. When the car dropped onto it's wheels, the track rods are almost straight from the steering rack...