Vintage air install questions

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Joined
Mar 18, 2007
Threads
63
Messages
630
Location
Altanta, GA
Okay, I bought the vintage air system for my 74' 40.....really nice unit, but, since my truck is the transition year, I'm having a few fitment issues. I've included some pics to show my concerns.

1st off: I had to use the outer pulleys on my water pump and crank, since the compressor sits a bit forward in the supplied bracket and has no tension adjustment. No biggie, as I made some adjustable slide brackets to mount on the compressor/bracket.

2nd: The pulleys that are there are kind of skinny. I'm using a 1/2" v belt that fits (on the smaller side) of the compressor and seems a tiny bit wide for the truck pulleys. I ran the engine for a while and it didn't seem to want to jump the pulleys, but thought I'd see what you guys think about the 'bite' of the belt on the two truck pulleys. I don't know if there is a narrower belt, but it would probably be too narrow for the compressor pulley. This one is in between the best size for the compressor and the best size for the engine pulleys.

First pic shows what seems to be a slight misalignment of the path of the belt....is this enough to cause serious problems? or just accelerated belt wear? or am I being too anal?

The second pic shows me folding the belt over inside out and pressing the 'v' into the groove to show the purchase that it gets on the pulley.

The last shows the adjustable mount I added to the bracket.

And lastly....the engine bay is usually much cleaner that this....I'm waiting till the install is done.... :-)
IMG_0565_2.webp
IMG_0570_2.webp
IMG_0569_2.webp
 
Any thoughts on the belt alignment? I wonder if I can shim the outer pulley away from the inner one just a bit to line it up better? Then again, that may knock it out of whack with the crank pulley....
 
None of the belt/pulleys ever seem to line up perfectly. The Vbelt is not designed to ride in the bottom of the V, but rather up on the shoulders. If it's not slipping, it's working. Your misalignment doesn't seem to bad, I've seen way worse. Hell, I've run way worse. I'd just keep an eye on belt wear. Any of the accessories such as compressor, can be shimmed with a little work.
 
I think your water pump pulley has one wide grove (closest to the engine) and one skinnier grove (the AC belt grove). There are water pump pulleys that have 2 wide groves which is what I would look for. Unfortunately im not sure what year model to look for.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom