Hey EZO, Those belts turn more than the A/C and Alt, the water pump pulley is a direct connect. True the A/C & Alt run independently, but the water pump does not. The narrow belt rides lower than the wider effectively creating a virtual mismatch in the pulleys.

 

Thanks for the explanation, the older cars I had used to dim the lights and slow the blower down when at a light with everything on. The 82 does not do that, the lights stay strong and so does the blower. It is just when that alt. belt is either loose or stretched, the volts will drop below 13 (at a stop) unless or until you bring the idle up.

On a side note, months ago when I was driving to work in the early AM, (still dark out) I noticed that my lights would actually "blink" like they were going off and on, this was happening for a few days. I check all connections and could not find anything loose. That is when I replaced the alternator and it never did that again. And I did have my alternator checked and they said it was fine. But since the 82 is my "dd", I did not take any chances and replaced anyway.

I did have a problem with the wiper module, which drained everything and left me stranded on the highway, when I first bought the 82 over a year ago. At that time, replacement wiper modules were recalled because of a malfunction, so I found someone who rebuilds and updates them to todays standards. So that problem was solved.

And what would you think the root cause could possibly be??? Do I need to go through the electrical system? Could it be that the wiring needs to be improved or upgraded? Because if I can eliminate the problem in the 82, provided it is something else other than belt slippage, I need to know, because the 74 is starting to go back together this month, and I can also make the necessary mods to that system as well, since it is all apart.......


I may have been able to turn it the otherday, but after the adjustment, can hardly move it, if at all.


Let me know if you make any progress, we'll have to add this to the "sticky", since it seems to be an 82 problem...

I will try one of these......thanks for the info.......

 

If the ratio between the belt and the pulley is the same, the ratio between the crank and WP would be the same = no slippage.
The factory figured this stuff out for us- For a C3 with an SBC, the alt belts are typically 3/8" or 7/16" wide (depending on year and application) and 7/16" wide for the A/C. I'm confident the engineers wouldn't have specified different widths if it would introduce slippage.

Bottom line, run the belts and widths dictated by the factory for the year/pulleys you are running (charts are posted in the parts manual) and there should be no slippage.