I am understanding this correctly? if the crankshaft rotates clockwise looking at/facing the front of the car - can the belt then follow the blue line around the tensioner under the water pump, etc. back to start?

thanks for any help with this

Sean

 

Possible? Potentially. Possible without damage or other issues cropping up? I doubt it.

You'd be reversing the direction of the tensioner pulley for one thing. This isn't in itself a problem, but the tensioner is designed to put tension into the belt system by deflection to the right, not by actual belt tension upward (the way you'd have it) to hold the system in the right friction mode. So in addition to asking the belt to make a near 180 degree u-turn on a small diameter tensioner pulley (it does about a 120 degree turn around the alternator which is the sharpest turn in the normal system), you'd also be changing the characteristics of how much tension leverage is in the system overall.

But the real issue I'd worry about is that the belt has ribs on the side that comes off the crank pulley, and you'd be putting that same side over a tensioner pulley that has no ribs and is flat. This could mean damage to the ribs on the belt in short order, depending on how aggressively you rev the motor and other harmonic stresses in the system that the frisbee flywheel (on the water pump) is designed to smooth out.

So it may work but I don't think it would work for long, let's put it that way....

 

In addition to what ajp lists, you have fewer degrees of friction contact between belt-balancer and belt-water pump, according to your plan. I don’t know how many degrees can be lost before slippage under sharp acceleration will happen. It would be interesting to see.
Is there anyway to make a dummy pulley close to where the current AC compressor is located?

 

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/rnb-34224

 

thanks - I was looking to see if there was a way around adding the pulley - eventually will probably delete the AIR pump maybe I will reconfigure something then - possibly using a heim to tighten the tension at the alternator

but I think that is the route to take as well - I will pick one up

 

That is possible. I recall seeing a thread where the A/C, AIR pump, and tensioner were totally eliminated. Used a shorter belt and added a adjuster arm for the alternator, this provided the tension. I'll search around a bit.

 

thank you!

 

Looks like my memory is playing tricks on me...sorry about that...not finding what I thought I saw.

This guy has a neat, custom solution for the AIR pump...but he is running A/C.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...mp-delete.html

 

that's pretty slick - nice and simple -

I thought I came across a few in my original searches - I was certain one said everything could remain stock once the air and a/c were gone - I will have to keep looking to see who that was - I think that was the key though - both being removed - otherwise I think some were saying to replace the water pump with one that rotates the opposite way - regardless sounds like a future project
thanks again for trying and finding that cool solution - has the look that the air was never there -

 

If the belt goes over the top of the water pump pulley by doing this, it means the direction that the water pump rotates is opposite to normal. So you'd have to change out either the impeller type in the water pump or the whole pump itself for one that is reverse direction to normal Corvette fitment...

 

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...mp-delete.html

this is what I thought I saw - this make any sense?