22 replies to this topic

[Judderman]

been doing a number of jobs on the vx now over the past week, one of these jobs was to change the alternator belt which i purchased a few weeks ago. My car essentially is standard so to my great surprise i discover theres no tensioner on my current belt upon removing the drivers side mount and is looking suspiciously like the short belt mod (alternator connected with a much shorter belts to the larger drive wheel. I take it this is the short belt mod and requires a shorter belt, how do you change it and what size belts are used on these things as i didn't know it had been changed?

[MrSimba]

is the 'drive' wheel alloy? is it straight to the Alternator and nothing else? If so sounds very like the 'short belt mod' Usual belt is a 'gates 853'

[Judderman]

Cheers Simba the drive wheel doesn't look alloy but yep its connected straight to the alternator hows best to change belt, do you need to remove the drive pulley?

[siztenboots]

there are a few brackets that hold the amount of tilt on the alternator, when removed you should be able to tilt the alt full forwards, hook the belt on the alt and what you can on to the big pulley then turn the engine forwards, either in 5th gear and slowly push to draw the belt on

[westie]

Hi if the altenator bracket has not been modified ie a lenghtened slot for adjustment then you will have to take the bottom pulley off not to bad 4 bolts, you should then be able to get the belt off, the belt will have the length stamped on it in mm's if you have a standard bottom pulley, belt length will be around 880 to 900 mm but it varies from car to car as people will modify the altenator bracket various ways for the shorter belt.This does not apply if you have the courtney or mmg belt kit.

[siztenboots]

also note the big pulley has a 4 bolt pattern that is not 12 / 3 / 6 / 9 o'clock, one bolt is more like 9.30

[TheRealVXed]

What's the benefit of this mod out of interest?

[siztenboots]

much less rpm on the alternator, you see lots of lotus with cooked alternators on trackdays , also a much simpler arrangement and you can scrap a load of idler pulleys, tensioners and heavy brackets.

[Dashwood]

The Courtney or MMG kit has a smaller lighter pulley that does 4 things. Stops over rev of the alternator, for tracked cars. Gives clearance to an oil union that's very close with the standard pulley. Helps the engine spin up very slightly faster. Gets rid of that crappy squeaky idler pulley and associated iron mongery saving iirc 5kg.

[westie]

Only problem with the courtney/mmg kit is that the crankshaft pulley does not have a damper ,thats why some of us have retained the original pulley

[siztenboots]

there was so much runout on the original pulley that it must have been out of balance on the crankshaft

[Judderman]

will go back up this morning and take a look at the original belt to get a number, noticed it was a goodyear but call it a night after that

[Judderman]

i've taken a few quick pic's of it, am i right in thinking its using the original drive pulley?

Also is anyone able to tell me if the alternator bracket has been modded from the picture?

and lastly i cant find a 880/900mm indicator on it at present

sorry for all the pic's and questions, really wasnt expecting to find it modded

[Darkangelv2]

What's with the doily?

[siztenboots]

not all turbo models have the rain protector on top of the alt

[Adam_B]

Looks like the belt could be an 874, if you take it off and go to your local motorfactors they will be able to match it. Also you can see from the last pic that the top bolt on the alternator and where its goes through the bracket, that hole has been drilled out so its a slot.

[Judderman]

ah so i would need to undo the bolt on the alternator to get the movement to release the belt easier

[siztenboots]

looks like its been rubbing on the oil union bolt

[Adam_B]

from memory there is 3 or 4 bolts on the bracket that need to come off to allow the alternator to rotate forward to give you the slack to remove the belt.

[Pidgeon]

not all turbo models have the rain protector on top of the alt

Having changed a seized alternator last week, was this added to later cars? May be a good idea as I've run out of garages!