6/5/07

Sunday morning I head to the shop to install the alternator on George. It has the wrong pulley on it, a five-groove serpentine belt type, so I plan to swap on a V-belt pulley off of a Nissan alternator. I chuck the thing up in the vice and find a socket for the nut. I use one of those rubber grip-wrench things that were popular, but useless, a few years ago to hold the pulley while I hit it with the impact wrench. The nut spins off and I'm happy. I set that one aside and grab a random Nissan alternator. I spin the nut off but find that Nissan alternators use a double D-shaped mandrel for the pulley. I put it back together and grab another one, just for grins. This one has a round hole. Of course, once I try it on the alternator the problem is apparent. The pulley has a concave face on both sides and won’t fit down far enough to engage the shaft of the alternator. I consider taking it to a parts store to see if they will spin a V-belt pulley on but decide it would be highly unlikely that they could since I don’t know what car this alternator was originally supposed to fit. Besides, I was wearing one of the jumpsuits and didn’t feel like changing. I grok things and think for a bit. I notice that the serpentine pulley fits perfectly inside the V-belt pulley’s concavity. “If I just had enough argon to zook them together,” I thought. It was worth a try. I took the serpentine pulley and cut it down to just the boss that fit the alternator and the innermost ridge. I inserted that into the back half of the V-belt pulley and fired up the welder. I got three 1” or so welds around the edges before I ran out of gas. I cooled that and went to try it on the alternator. It fit and spun nicely. Too bad the other half of the V-belt pulley made the thing too thick to put the nut on. I stepped back to think some more. I couldn’t weld the two halves together because, well, you can’t weld the two halves of a V-belt pulley together for one thing, and I was out of argon. I sat there spinning the pulley half that I had and thought about it. I noticed a V-belt pulley I had removed from a front pulley and had a look at it. It sat down on the cone of the inner pulley and left plenty of room for the nut. It centered pretty easily and looked to sit in about the right spot. “What the hell?” I thought, “I can’t fuck it up any worse.” I fired up the TIG again. I got the thing stuck together and then totally ran out of gas. I tried in vain to weld in free air but it was no good. I shut off the welder and thought about it. I saw one of the original motor mounts I had made for the Seven when I began that project. I had done it with the oxygen/acetylene rig. “Why not gas weld it?” I asked myself. I drug the hoses and torch over to the vice and fired it up. After fiddling around with heat levels for a bit, I got into a groove and melted the things together. I spent probably an hour going back over the welds to “smooth” them up and make them “pretty.” It isn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s prettier than before. I hung it up and “cooled” it off by hitting it with black spray paint. When that had dried, like half a millisecond after painting it, and it was cool enough to handle, I installed it on the alternator. It was very nice. Well, it had some wobble where the V was pinched and/or stretched in places, but it fit and spun freely. Oh, I forgot to mention it is a much larger diameter than a regular pulley so it will not rob as much power from the wheels. At least that’s the story I'm going to use. I take the thing to the car and crawl under to install it. It barely fits in the hole I have left for myself but I do get it in place and bolted up. Of course the upper adjusting bracket and lower radiator hose want to occupy the same space. Oh, and the upper bracket is too short. I decide to lengthen the bracket and reroute the water hose. I cut the bracket in half and clean up the ends. I take a piece of 1” square tubing and cut a slot in one end. I insert one of the bracket pieces in that slot and weld them together. I cool it off and go for a test fit. My square tube is too long. I cut the square tubing to a length I think will work and make another slot for the rest of the bracket. I decide to angle this one so the bracket wraps around the alternator. I weld in the second half of the bracket and cool it off. After a successful test fit I hang it up and paint it. I leave the alternator in place on the car and have a look at the routing of the lower radiator hose. I decide that a section of flexible hose, about 24” long, will make the turn around the turbo down-pipe and go back to the outlet of the radiator. I'll still need two elbows and two unions, but I'm pretty sure it will work. I also take a fan belt, which is too short due to (tee hee, doo-doo!) the bigger pulley on the alternator, cut it and measure how much longer a belt I'll need. It looks like 1.5” more than the belt in my hand will do the job. I change clothes, clean up, and take the belt and a union with me to O’Reilley’s. They have the belt and one section of 15” flexible radiator hose. The McCart store has another 15” section so I go there. I stop back by the shop to drop those parts off and have a look at the hoses. I'm pretty sure I can make something happen with the parts I have. Well, I do need one more union but I think I can finger something out. Marty Smith swings by and has a look at my “progress.” When he leaves I decide I'd had just about enough and head home myself. So, there you have it. I think I'll go grab some lunch now. Have a day.