55.2-59 Serpentine belt- my journey

[01spirit750]

I am an avid / long time reader of this forum. I rarely post.

I thought I would show my madness.

When I built my truck I had the standard v belts. I always wanted to upgrade to a serpentine belt but I had issues that my setup was for a short water pump and I did not want to change everything to use a long water pump setup.

I was not real happy with the serpentine setups available for short water pumps.

I tried to make my own of steel and it worked but the pulley alignment was not perfect. I finally decided to machine my own out of aluminum.

I have no machining experience, but what the heck.

Here are a few pictures.

[mr48chev]

Nice looking setup, what pump did you use?

[01spirit750]

Thanks...

Re: water pump.

I bought a reverse flow water pump from Summit (85 corvette).

The only issue I had was an overheating issue (thermostat not opening). I found out that you need to have a small bypass hole in the thermostat. This allows a little water to always flow and for the thermostat to work correctly.

[Rickysnickers]

Very nice!!!

[dsraven]

ok, I gotta pluck on the "no machining experience". looks great. did you fabthe pulleys too or are they aftermarket?

[_Ogre]

very nice, i'm a firm believer that you can make better stuff cheaper than oem
i see $1200 serpentine setups and cringe, yours is well executed

[mr48chev]

Originally Posted by 01spirit750

Thanks...

Re: water pump.

I bought a reverse flow water pump from Summit (85 corvette).

The only issue I had was an overheating issue (thermostat not opening). I found out that you need to have a small bypass hole in the thermostat. This allows a little water to always flow and for the thermostat to work correctly.

Good answer. Correct pump for the application.

[mr48chev]

Shades of Little John Butera who started the whole billet parts industry because he could machine a piece out of surplus aluminum cheaper than he could buy it.

[01spirit750]

Thanks for all the input.

The pulleys are from March performance. I had to account for the time required and my skill level.

For the brackets, I did not really design them from scratch.
I used the v belt brackets as a template and made changes so that the serpentine pulleys would be properly aligned.

My mill is small but it works. It is from "little machine shop". I had looked at the harbor freight version but it requires so many updates and the one from Little machine shop included all the updates and was cheaper after all.

My first project was the x axis powerfeed (on the left side of the mill table).

[mr48chev]

I'm not going to knock you because you used a different bracket for a template. If not that you would have most likely had to start with a stock cast bracket and spend a lot of hours figuring out how to make it work. Some times the " I did it all myself from scratch and didn't use anyone else's info or part for a pattern is not too productive except for bragging rights.