Accessory Pully Alignment

iakj11 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 10, 2020 11:03 am

My serpentine belt came off yesterday. All pullies seem to be spinning freely. The alternator pully was replaced about 20K miles ago. No red dust on it or the viscous heater pulley. The tensioner was replaced 25K miles ago. The belt looks good, so I went ahead and put the belt back on, but kind of expect it to throw the belt again at some point soon.

I noticed two things that might be relevant:
1) The viscous heater pully seems to be a little out of alignment. See pic below.

2)The mechanical fan can't be stopped or slowed by a rolled up newspaper with engine cold and running.

Question: Is there adjustment in the VH pulley alignment? Anything else I should check to ensure the belt stays put?

Thanks!

iakj11 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 10, 2020 12:41 pm

Took a closer look at that viscous heater looking for alignment possibilities and found this cracked bracket:

Hmm. Any thoughts?

WWDiesel · **Posted:** Sat Oct 10, 2020 2:58 pm

You should remove the two pieces, take them to a welding shop and let them weld them back together or have them fabricate a new bracket out of thicker metal.
If it me, I would just build a new heavier duty bracket.

When I replace my thermostat, I plan to design and build a kit with a pulley to eliminate the vicious heater completely.
Waiting on a new thermostat from Jeff in Canada.

The stamped bracket part no. 05072436AA, is no longer available.

This is what is it should look like :wink:

:

flash7210 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 10, 2020 6:04 pm

That bracket is virtually useless and does nothing for holding the VH in place.
The VH is actually bolted to the water pump.
So, if that bracket is broken, what’s going on with the water pump?

Also, I’d take another look at the belt tensioner.

iakj11 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 10, 2020 7:53 pm

flash7210 wrote:

That bracket is virtually useless and does nothing for holding the VH in place.
The VH is actually bolted to the water pump.
So, if that bracket is broken, what’s going on with the water pump?

Good question. Took the belt back off and the VH and the mount behind it (aka the water pump) will readily move fore and aft. Safe to say the Jeep is not moving til this is fixed.

I have the parts on hand for a TB service, to include a new graf pump. Guess that all just moved higher on my list. Any other suggestions?

Jett · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2020 12:07 am **Posts:** 250

That’s not a slight misalignment, that’s a massive misalignment, but you already know why now. I’ve debated deleting my VH but for now I just pulled the fuse for it. However I’m not sure that it’s not a bad idea to keep it functioning until I get my Webasto installed.

snowballs · **Joined:** Sun Aug 13, 2017 4:05 pm **Posts:** 85

[quote="WWDiesel"]You should remove the two pieces, take them to a welding shop and let them weld them back together or have them fabricate a new bracket out of thicker metal.
If it me, I would just build a new heavier duty bracket.

When I replace my thermostat, I plan to design and build a kit with a pulley to eliminate the vicious heater completely.
Waiting on a new thermostat from Jeff in Canada.

The stamped bracket part no. 05072436AA, is no longer available.

Great idea WWDiesel,

You'll love Jeff's HDS thermostat. :pepper:

Keep us posted on the kit to eliminate the VH completely.

Cheers

flash7210 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:32 pm

I know that WWdiesel will have a high quality product once available.
But this is my VH delete:

WWDiesel · **Posted:** Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:50 pm

Flash, that looks good.
What pulley (PN) did you use, Gates 36167?

Waiting a new thermostat from Jeff that I ordered to arrive.
Once I have it in hand, I plan to totally remove the Viscous Heater and associated hoses and design a billet bracket to hold the pulley.

I would like to make something similar to this:

*picture provided by a LOST member.

flash7210 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2020 3:48 am

Yes.
36167 pulley.

http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=90142&p=936877

iakj11 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2020 9:06 am

ID Parts is selling Gates pulley 38029 and a Gates belt K080615 as what's needed for a mech fan/VH delete. Obviously only for those willing to eliminate the fan, but anyone have any more details on doing this? Is there an electric fan upgrade that would go with?

flash7210 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:02 pm

iakj11 wrote:

ID Parts is selling Gates pulley 38029 and a Gates belt K080615 as what's needed for a mech fan/VH delete. Obviously only for those willing to eliminate the fan, but anyone have any more details on doing this? Is there an electric fan upgrade that would go with?

To do the IDparts pulley+short-belt the fan pulley has to be pulled off of the fan hub.
When I first did it I acquired another fan bracket so I could easily switch back to stock if needed.

I ran for several years with the engine driven fan removed, using only the electric fan in the grille. Worked just fine in Florida summers and on flat roads.
I even added a switch so I could manually turn the fan on if needed.
But if you tow and/or drive over mountains, probably won’t work as good.

As time wore on the electric fan was no longer sufficient for cooling. Probably just the fan motor getting worn out.
So I installed a fixed flex fan. No thermal fan clutch. And that has worked quite well for me.
Later, when I installed a aftermarket intercooler, I was forced to completely remove the electric fan and still cools just fine.

iakj11 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2020 6:27 pm

Thanks for the explanation flash. I think I'll just replace my fan clutch, rather than making any major changes. I can see I have an 11 blade plastic fan. I suspect it's the kj gasser one but wont know for sure it's not the gm one until I get in there. Will just get a new clutch to match. Tear down starts tommorow. Rockers and ARP studs are on the way also.

iakj11 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:25 pm

Found the cause of my problem today. The outboard bolt securing the VH to the water pump was missing. The little bracket that connects to the thermostat and the inboard water pump bracket arm were broken.
I suspect this bolt has been missing since the last TB service which the PO reported was about 50K miles ago.

iakj11 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 28, 2020 10:36 pm

Update - it's almost back together now after new timing parts, water pump, rockers and arp studs. A friend welded the broken bracket for me and I actually found the original missing bolt laying on the front skid plate!

Like an idiot I dropped the alternator on the radiator during reassembly, so project stalled out until I can deal with that.

Accessory Pully Alignment

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