Alternator belt adjustment

Tycho

In response to this and your most previous post, you do not need to remove anything to gain access to adjust the alternator belt. What you do need is bucketfuls of patience.

To slacken the top adjustment bolt you need to approach it from the top and slide the open ended spanner in between the heat shield and nut by feel. Ie you cannot see what you are doing, but if you have somebody to look from below while you are trying to locate the nut then it will help.

Once loosened (only but half a turn at most) then I get a wooden pole and lever the alternator against the engine block to tighten the belt. Then retighten the nut. The trick is not to loosen the top adj. nut to much so when you apply leverage it stays in place. If you loosen the nut to much, when you apply pressure it just goes back and you will have to keep the pressure on the alternator belt and tighten the nut. Very difficult.

After tightening then check the slack in accordance with the manual, it should deflect about 15mm on the longest length. Do not overtighten otherwise you be replacing the water pump next!!

Sorry and hope you understand my rather crude attempt to explain this, it isn't easy.

This site used to be full of people who were always willing to help and take time to assist, but unfortunately it is now full of people who monitor the price of dinos for investments than actually hard core petrol heads like some of us.

 

Here is a couple of pictures showing the lower and upper bolt for your information. (L-series) The bottom bolt you don't need to loosen according to Tony. Happy wrenching
Regards Peter
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i have done the alternator adjustment to my us 246 gts probably 15 x. I changed the pulley and snapped several belts due to the width of the V that I had cut into it. I have to finish a re-build on an XKE that i am doing and then I am back onto this job. As Tony says it is a pain and requires real patience. I made a simple tool which helped . I bought a turnbuckle at Home Depot. This is the type that they use on sail boats and has two threaded rods in it but one is reverse threaded so that when you turn the body of the turnbuckle the rods either both go in or expand out. The end of the rods are formed into an eye hook which i cut in half- so i have a half moon shape now. I had to do some minor welding to attach the half moon to the ends of the threaded rod so it looks like this )-----====-----( (a clever illustration i must say). i then put each end into the groove on the pulley of the alternator & either the crank pulley or the water pump pulley. Clearly you can't expand it too tight or you will damage the water pump pulley bearing (but they are pretty robust) however it will give you enough force where you can adjust the belt and tighten the nut. it works pretty well and makes a tough job less bad. I need to improve the welds on mine but thats what i did. Jim Selevan is the smarty that figured this one out for me. Good luck

 

Good idea, champtc.

Andy

 

Tycho-
i have attached a picture of the alternator tool that I made. If you don't have one or can't make one i would be happy to mail it to you and lend it to you. it really makes the job easier…let me know…. actually the photo exceeds my data limit..its time to re-up…in any case the offer stands … I am in the USA

 

ah, no you didn't (attach a picture)

 

i don't have the ability to email the pics on this site…. the pics require too much bandwidth ( or whatever its called) if u email me at [email protected] with your email i will fwd a pic of the tool- in the meantime i have to re-up my fchat subscription to allow me to transmit data...