Another never ending story about my son's 1985 Chevy pick up with 350 engine. Now the third engine and lost track of how many transmissions. As before, this information can be used for station wagons, cars, or trucks. So come along with my son and I as we work under our shadetree. The not so local salvage yard has half price holiday sales. Son got tired of replacing 7004R trannys and replaced everything with a GM five speed with hydraulic clutch. As is his luck, it works great except the 5th gear thingie is worn out. Not making a lot of money here in the boonies he waited until July 5th to go look for another five speed at half price. A junk yard full of GM 85-95 and beyond trucks and not one five speed. This brings us to son's next reoccuring problem. Now on the third engine but still using mostly the old belts, pulleys, and brackets. Every week or so the power steering belt or fan belt would break. Always a new belt. One broken belt got tangle in the seven blade fan which bent and ruined the radiator. All pulleys looked and measured square. He'd mentioned he would like to swap to a serpentine system and I talked him out of doing it. He does not live at home but uses and abuses my tools and garage. In 1985 the GM serpentine belt system was optional in deluxe trucks which his is. Since many engines have been swapped it ended up with the three belt system. While doing the junkyard crawl he found many serpentine belt systems on GM trucks. Son removed every nut, bolt, bracket, pulley, etc, picking the best from at least three pick up trucks. He ended up with what appeared a near new AC compressor, power steering pump with label still attached, maybe a recently changed water pump, a belt with the plastic label still on it, plus another new looking belt with the white markings stamped on it. I'm thinking just the belts are around $20-$25 dollars new and he'd paid nearly $200 for a replacement original AC compressor. Shoulda swapped sooner. Even the idler pulley and tension pulley appeared farly new on one truck, missing on others. Since the new AC compressor is now on passenger side he got the best shorter hoses he could find also. He picked up a five bladed clutch fan but discovered a large seven blade fan. Everything needed and looking good, he headed to the office. Son expected to pay $100 or so. They gave him the two belts and the AC hoses. Remember spare belt. Cost at half price was $130. He returned junk cores and got $40 back. Just over $89 for a complete GM serpentine system. Keep in mind this was half price day at a popular nation wide salvage company. It's an hour drive, nearly 100 degree day. So after stopping to get Permatex for water pump and spending another two hours swapping from his three belt system, he now has a one belt serprentine system for under $100 and no more thrown belts. He wants to make the swap on my 1955 Chevy wagon now. I guess the new AC compressor can have a pulley swap to the wide style. A catalog fancy serpentine system can cost anywhere from $1500 to $2000. Paint those junk yard brackets Rustolium gloss black or polish them if they are aluminum. Already an update. His truck began running hot. Seven blade clutch fan clutch bad. As a temorary fix he happend to have a 2" clutch spacer eliminator. About the only possible parts that you may need new is the reverse flow water pump and the fan clutch. All ya need is an afternoon, two hundred dollars, and a shade tree.
I've been saying that for years, and just for Chebby owners, the big kicker that makes doing this to an older not original car or truck is the fact that ALL of the engine mount points, from the 265 on up are all the same. Just imagine, you'd have the ability to bolt straight up to the block, even with the reverse-rotation pump, at every point that was originally cast by the foundry, and there are delete pulleys and shorter belts to accommodate what you find and use. It also allows you to use the far, far better 17SI alternator instead of that nasty gennie and fender-mounted regulator, and the factory newer-design A/C compressor for an aftermarket A/C install.
Not positive but I believe the early heads do not have the threaded holes for all brackets. Also forgot to mention son got a 140 amp alternator. He can turn everything on and the volt gauge stays up I think around 14V. The alternator alone was worth the cost. Another thing he did that makes me wonder......:confused:. He had been using the old AC compressor that had been in the bed of the truck for years. Only new part was a dryer. Charged the Freon system with 134 without vacuum bleeding it and the thing would freeze you out in 100 degree heat this summer. Only once did he have to add 134 to it. He found out one of the old AC hoses had a minor seep which eventually became a major burst. Correction, the AC compressor had a short hard line crack. Probably from those years rolling around in the bed. Replaced the original compressor with an O' Reileys rebuild and another old AC hose. It was working great until he did the serpentine swap. I'm not sure if he has recharged the newer compressor and dryer. Not saying this is the right way but in 90+ temps it's working with out anything but paint in the inner roof and doors.
Hmmmmmmmmmm ! I would think at least with later Olds parts it should swap out. Not sure if the Chevy heads and Olds parts have the same bolt hole spacing for the brackets. Just swap the whole mess to a Chevy V-8.
There is no factory serpentine system for an Olds V8. The only reverse rotation water pump is the one used on the V6 diesel, which DOES bolt to any 1964-1990 Olds V8 block. The pump is available from Cardone. If you can find a V6 diesel and score all the brackets, that will bolt to the V8. Good luck finding one. Note that it has to be a RWD V6 diesel from a Cutlass. The FWD versions used a different accessory drive configuration and even a different water pump. Some people have adapted Chevy serpentine accessory brackets using home made adapter plates and the V6 diesel water pump. It is a lot of work for very little benefit. Frankly there are tens of millions of cars on the road with conventional V-belts and none of them are throwing/breaking belts, destroying fans, or chewing up radiators. Personally, if that's a problem, I'd look for what's changed since the O.P.'s truck was new, because from the factory it didn't have this problem. Once you find and repair or replace the incorrect bracket or bent pulley, I suspect that the belt breaking problem would stop - for a small fraction of the cost and pain of a serpentine setup.
Joe I agree. My late model truck and a 1987 Chevy van were the only things I've had with a serpentine system. Had few broken belts on other vehicles. I've driven everything from a Model T Ford to a 440 powered motorhome and never threw a belt. Had two break in all those years. But if I had the problems my son has with belts I'd gone the serpentine route too. In reality the cost of under $100 and an afternoons work really was cheaper than hunting different pulleys and brackets. It seems to be a clean swap and easier to change belts than the old system with two or three belts. Still I'm not updating anything until I loose several belts repeatedly. none of them are throwing/breaking belts, destroying fans, or chewing up radiators.--- Yes some are! That's why some are swapping out. Others are just following the sheep when building catalog cars! And I'd almost bet the manufaturers switched because the installation was faster and cheaper on the assembly lines.
The 265 V8 heads do have the same bosses. I worked in a machine shop and had handled much older heads as well as newer heads. But the reason you install a serp system is not for anything except removing the maintenance factor and larger or more powerful accessories. The alternator he got would be either a 17SI or newer alternator, but I'm sure he grabbed a 17SI. When I installed the 351W in my Ranchero, I used the Grand Marquis' multi-rib setup, rather than trying to chase down all the V-belt brackets and pulleys. The cool thing here is that if I want to install and wire up a 130A 3G alternator for it, it'll bolt right up with absolutely no shimming or adjustment as the parts all go up to whatever year it was that Panther platform cars switched to the 4.6L engine.
We had drum brakes and points also and they worked fine but advancement in technology leads to change. I have both set ups for my caprice engine, not sure which I will use. My dilemma is it swaps sides for my alternator so I need to look at harness and see if wires reach or if I need to extend them. Not a major issue but may make me stick to original v belt set up. Also probably not putting A/C back in it so have to order delete pulley, not a big deal either but most of time I end up with a spur of the moment free time to do anything so I usually use what is convienent and handy. May not be the way everyone else does things but I just am not one that can make plans anymore, I just do as time allows and try not to sweat the small stuff. And yes this drives 1tiredad crazy but it's not the same with his projects because money is no object for me.....because it is not my money!
SBC heads prior to '69 do not have the accessory bolt holes in them. In '69 they switched to the passenger side alternator mount bracket that they used for the next 100 years. We had to swap to an original driver's side alternator bracket mount when we put camel back heads on the 383 in our '67 Biscayne for a couple of reasons. One of which was lack of accessory bolt holes to mount the alternator with the newer style brackets.
YEP! Another GM change is the AC compressor is often on the driver side with long hoses. With serpentine system AC comprssor moves back to passenger side with the shorter hoses again. Son had to try two different sets of short AC hoses to get the right metal bends from the compressor. But that's another issue. Like with the HEI distributor, some still like the old points set up. We made the swap and never worry about points or timing. But I'm hanging onto real carburators.
Well, call me a "catalog car" kinda guy. I guess the serp system is good, got it on my Tahoe with 215,000 miles. I changed the belt twice, just 'cuz. All my other stuff has v-belts. I can't remember the last time I had a belt break, if ever. I was with a friend, towing in his Suburban, when an idler pulley let go though. I've got the original engine in my Monte Carlo SS, with 246,000 miles, and never had a problem with the engine or trans. Why is your son going thru engines and transmissions?
