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Old 01-05-2013, 09:03 PM
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njsteve njsteve is offline
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Default Re: The New Project: Part Deux!

BTW, Here is a tip for the squeeling belt syndrome that Pontiacs have. These cars are very sensitive to belt thickness. If they are running multiple belts on the crank and water pump pulleys, the parallel running belts must all be of the same width or else they will scream at high RPMs.

The problem is due to the fact that they are trying to fight each other for traction while turning the same distance of water pump pulley at the same time. Because the thinner belt is sitting lower in the groove than the thicker belt, the thinner one is technically a longer belt by a few millemeters over the same distance of pulley groove.

Unfortunately, most manufacturers have gone to narrower belts for the old cars. I just bought two new belts for the Formula and had to search a while on rockauto.com for a matching set from Goodyear. Rockauto actually lists the widths for each belt, and they were cheap - around $10 total with shipping. The Goodyears were .44 width which is a little bit more than 14/32. The Gates and Delco belts were .4063 (13/32 width). Napa were the worst - they were around 12/32.

Here is the photo after the new same width belts were installed. As you can see, the inner, alternator belt only rides on about 3 inches of the water pump pully - just enough to create the scream if it is a different width. The power steering belt is what really operates the water pump pulley.



Compare that with this photo (courtesy of Steve Hoog) showing two different thickness belts on the water pump pully.

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