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As embarrassed as I am to admit this, my belt alignment has been this way for the entire 26 years that I have owned my C3! I am now retired and have time. I am planning on changing the water pump (also on the car since I purchased it) and thought that this would be the time to remedy this issue. Since the alternator and water pump seems to be aligned, are there spacers for the crankshaft pulley that I can use?
Your missing the crank to wp rear belt. Start there I would not shim behind the crank or wp. Any shimming should be done on ps brackets if you have it and a/c compressor brackets if you have it and necessary. Alternators are a common problem as often changed over the years and end up with the wrong pulley. Search the aftermarket sources for the correct one. A long carpenter square will be your friend, I have been through this more times than I care to think of.
Your lower pulley is out too far because the harmonic balancer is not fully seated. Can you post some photos showing various angles on both sides?
After viewing your .mov file, it looks like you only have the alternator, no power steering, AIR Pump, or AC. So your belt configuration should look like the one on the left, minus the AIR Pump.
Your alternator to water pump belt should be on the front groove of the crank pulley.
As you can see, the Harmonic Balancer is not fully seated, causing the belts to not line up correctly.
File photo for example, notice how the Harmonic Balancer is further in so the belts line up.
When I removed my Harmonic Balancer, I put witness marks on the HB to make sure it was all the way in when I re-installed it. You can also temporarily install the pulleys to make sure they line up.
Last edited by 71 Green 454; Nov 21, 2022 at 08:33 AM.
Your lower pulley is out too far because the harmonic balancer is not fully seated. Can you post some photos showing various angles on both sides?
Ditto... 68s are weird also in the belt drive department as well. Pull your balancer and figure out what's going on there. As for the how your belt routing should be depends on your options. Not sure what the criteria is but I believe the early 427s had idlers on the first belt where as later 68+ onward the idler was deleted. My brothers 68 has just the crank to waterpump belt (no idler) then the powersteering and alternator belts. If you're not sure about the belt routing types here is a thread that shows the options for belt routing for both the 327 and 427 cars. LINK
Thank you all for the input! The car has been this way for 26 years and through those years I really flexed it's muscle both on the street and strip. The motor was built about 5 years before my purchase and there is no contact available with the builder. If my HB was out of wack, wouldn't that have caused a BIG problem early on? Is there any way that it's just that one of the pulleys are wrong?
Thank you all for the input! The car has been this way for 26 years and through those years I really flexed it's muscle both on the street and strip. The motor was built about 5 years before my purchase and there is no contact available with the builder. If my HB was out of wack, wouldn't that have caused a BIG problem early on? Is there any way that it's just that one of the pulleys are wrong?
Looking online it appears that the BBC balancer face which the pulley bolts to is supposedly 3 1/16” off the front machined part of the block. As for causing problems not necessarily.
1968 427 belt misalignment
