<VV> Fan Belts was Taking the turbo

Brent Covey brentcovey at hotmail.com
Sun May 28 02:48:27 EDT 2006


Something I used to encounter often years ago when GM discontinued thier
excellent belt was the fabric cover on the narrow factory style GM belt
would pick up abrasive dust and polish a groove deep into the pulleys that
ended about 2/3 the way to the outer edge, leaving a high unworn edge- when
a newer wider and in particular raw edged belt was substituted it would eat
the first one in a few miles, the second in about a thousand and the third
would last forever as the high spots in the pulleys polished down. The cord
in the raw edge belts usually lined right up where the worn area ended and
would whittle a new belt apart pretty rapidly until it polished down.

The hot belt at that time (1980's) was a Gates 11A1420 but think things went
awry when they changed to Top Cog about 1992.

Belt life seems much improved generally when the belt is broken in on an
idling engine under high tension for ten minutes then adjusted correctly
before going into service. The spare belt fits quite tidily in the air
intake plenum on lates if you need a place to carry it out of sight.

The GM belts were pretty good, used to see lots hit 80,000+ miles.

Brent Covey
Vancouver BC


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