Tales of an Aspergian Bus Driver

Yet more car stuff.

I met another RX-7 guy today, the guy who had pointed me in the direction of Cooper, who helped me rebuild my engine. We talked for a while, compared RX-7s (he has a turbo, and wasn't familiar with the non-turbo engine compartment layouts), and I snagged a dual alternator pulley. For the non-tech minded people, just accept I spend another $50 on my car. For the techie geeks, read on...

The water pump & fan are normally driven by 2 belts. One powers the water pump & air pump (for emissions), and the other powers the water pump & alternator. Now, I don't have an air pump anymore. So the car had been running with only one belt on the water pump. This isn't a huge problem, but the alternator belt doesn't have a lot of "contact angle" on the water pump, and it's known to slip at high RPMs under load. Also, the belt breaking immediately causes a lot of problems - driving without the alternator can be done for a while on battery power, but the lack of a water pump leads to rapid engine overheating and usually the failure of a coolant seal (rebuild time), if you're lucky and don't warp engine parts. Needless to say, this is bad.

So, the solution is to put a double pulley on the alternator, and just run two identical belts next to each other, driving the water pump & alternator. I did this tonight - after an hour of work in the Checker auto parts parking lot, I now have two belts driving the important things. Power steering & AC are not critical.

I've also gained a significant appreciation of the "old style" engine compartments & belt layouts. One belt, one accessory (or something close). If you don't want something driven, you can remove the belt. If a belt breaks, everything else continues to run. And, most importantly, it's not difficult to replace belts. Newer engines with serpentine belts are a royal pain to work on (if not impossible). I'm sure it's more efficient or such, but... it's just ugly to fix.

That's about it for now. I'd have more content, but I really don't have anything to talk about. My life this summer has been very boring. 8 days of work left...

-=Russ=-

Posted by rgraves at July 12, 2004 09:34 PM