Earlier than serpentine belts and their fancy belt tensioning arms confirmed up, the common-or-garden engine V-belt dominated the roost.
And although V-belts have confirmed dependable for many years, there’s one huge catch: They’ve to stay correctly tensioned or they’ll slip and trigger all types of issues in your accent drive system. If the V-belt isn’t tensioned appropriately, not solely will you shortly expend your belt, there’s a very good probability your alternator, A/C compressor, and energy steering system received’t work both.
And correct V-belt rigidity can’t occur, if you happen to don’t have the appropriate pitch size engine V-belt to start with.
Drawback is, if you happen to’ve acquired an previous, distinctive, or modified engine, you won’t be capable to go to your favourite automotive components provider and pluck an application-specific belt proper off the shelf. Nope, in these situations, measuring is your only option.
The excellent news is, you don’t essentially want the previous belt to measure and evaluate in opposition to. All it is advisable to do is guarantee your engine equipment (and their pulleys) are within the right place AND correctly aligned. Then you’ll be able to bust out your tape measure and notepad to test some key specs.
Higher but, our pal Craig Artzner with the Summit Racing tech crew made a helpful infographic to indicate you ways and the place to measure, plus you’ll get a easy formulation and a few pattern calculations that can assist you decide the proper pitch size V-belt you’ll want.
If you wish to ensure you’ve acquired the perfect V-belt on your engine, this image and formulation will assist you to do it. Test it out:
