AC Big 10 Starter/Generator belt change

You can get by, by pulling the driveshaft loose from the flywheel. It's a tight workspace in there, and there is just enough space to get the belt between them. Some fellas like to put an extra over the shaft while they are in there, then just ziptie the extra so it's out of the way and not catching the shaft. 20 years from now, when it's due to be changed again, all you have to do is cut the ziptie and pull the belt onto the pulleys.

OK, thanks for the info. Since I don't want to do this again the extra belt sound like a good idea.

Afraid I was going to have to pull the engine and who knows what all else.

Thanks again.

Mike

When the belt broke on My father inlaws 1964 simplicity landloard he came to the same conclution, Pull the engine.



Not wanting to do that he made the rounds (before internet) of auto parts stores. He picked up a Emergency V belt repair kit which will I think be impossiable to find today since there are very few V belts used on autos.
After Dad passed away and that repair he made was about 15 years old the belt broke again. I also got lazy and didn't want to pull the engine so went in search for a soultation on the internet.

Here is what I got.
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/POWERTWIST-PLUS-Link-VBelt-6PTY2?Pid=search

You can find smaller cheaper sizes on the net. But I get a tax break at Grangers I got it there. I installed it worrying it wouldn't cut the mustard all the while. It is going on 5 years now and works great and best of all no fuss no muss installing it. I now have some left over for some other use.

That 15 year "temporary" fix was a good idea. I went thru the procedure and the new belt is in place. Not a real fun project but it only took a couple of hours. Be faster next time since I know the spacers can roll under the engine and become impossible to retrieve. Fortunately I had some Shelby tubing with the proper bore size to cut new ones from.

The tractor lost a bit of vibration after replacing that cracked up old belt. Surprised me.

Mike

Woops...yes, those spacers are a bee-och to keep a finger on, and worse to get into position to get the bolts through. Do you have hydrolift? That makes for an even worse job, with less space to work. A good tip, 30 years from now when you're ready to do the job again, is to stuff an old t-shirt or rag in there, around the base of the engine to catch those inevitably dropped components.

You can disconnect the 2 front bolts from th driveshaft to the engine, then in the back on the bottom right before the bevel gearbox, there is a hole In the bottom where you can loosen the set screw that connects the drive shaft yolk to the bevel gearbox. Then you can slide the drive shaft back a little bit, giving you some more room between the engine and the drive shaft. Then put on belt, tighten the screws to the engine first! Then tighten the setscrew to the yolk in the rear and your golden. Only takes a few minutes. Plus by loosening the yolk and sliding it that will make sure it doesnt lock up on you in the long run.

i just put a towel under the drive shaft up against the fan housing to catch the spacers and I loosen the bolts out of the fly wheel and pull one at a time, remove the spacer put the belt half way through reinstall the bolt and spacer ( leave loose)than remove the next, move the belt the rest of the way through and then replace the second bolt and spacer, tighten up both bolts. Since you only remove one bolt at a time you dont loose the alignment and they are easy to replace. A belt hidden up under the hood for 10 years is a 10 year old belt subjected to all the crud that gets sucked through that area. Additionally there is so much going on down there you are surely to get it hung up on something when the zip ties fail. We had a starter/generator fail on our B1 and took the belt off till be got it fixed. thought we had it wired up out of the way but when we got ready to reinstall the S/G we found that it had slipped and rubbed against the rear coupler and cut the belt in two.