Eagles International Forum

Jim Is the best to answer this as he knows way more than I do about a whole bunch of thing's especially belts.First off in my 70 years I have never seen a belt with out some sort of tightner except a maytag wash machine. Belts stretch under power. Motors move. Belts stretch with wear. belts get longer when hot. You need something to keep tension on the belt to over come this.
Wayne

My fan drive system does not have an extra idler. Wayne uses the extra idle to clear something in the area. If at all possible the drive should only have the spring loaded idler.

A couple of tips:

1) It is very hard to design a drive (in the space we have to deal with) with enough take-up if you design it to easily install the belts. Instead, design the drive so that the belt is almost snug without the idler touching it. This will dictate that you remove one of the sheaves, place the belt in both sheaves and then re-install the sheave.

2) The best spring system is a short compression spring (think valve spring) with provision to adjust it as the drive requires take-up. Our diesel engines have some pretty bad torsional vibration at idle and a "soft" spring system will result in a lot of undesired system dynamics. Wayne had a soft system and it resulted in some pretty bad "banging" of the gear box. When he converted to the short compression spring it really smoothed out.

Jim

Boy I blew that one. I need to slow down and comperhend what I am reading. I told you Jim knows more than I do including reading.

Thanks Jim, now it makes sense in my mind. I might be able to find a few valve springs, if they wouldn't be too stiff...

Right now the IH engine mount is kinda kicking me, the belts need to go pretty high to clear it. And my pulley is pretty close to engine.

I may have to go higher with the shaft, which is doable

Happens to everybody, Wayne lol

On my factory setup on the Model 15 they did not use drive shafts and universal joints, they used a solid straight shaft with one flexible connection. But since you already got the parts...

Walter this way I can put in a fan clutch someday if I think it needs it. And yes, I was aware how the model 15s were...

To add you into the belt tension conversation..

It does not look like your model 15 has a spring loaded tensioner but I may be wrong.

Nothing finished, I seem to be working on everything at once lol, but here are some pictures of what I have been doing

Eagle obsessed wrote:Walter this way I can put in a fan clutch someday if I think it needs it. And yes, I was aware how the model 15s were...

To add you into the belt tension conversation..

It does not look like your model 15 has a spring loaded tensioner but I may be wrong.

No, it is not spring loaded, but since the bearings in it are loose I will be looking for a better device. The stock setup lets the rubber belts get awfully close to the exhaust pipe, and I'm thinking of splitting the exhaust to both sides so the toad does not get blasted. I've given up on roof exhaust because it will get the rear dirty.

Mason, when you get ready to fabricate your idler system, the information below may be helpful.

Gates sells industrial sheave bushings with bearings in them. Here is a link: https://www.royalsupply.com/store/pc/Ga ... p69209.htm. I am sure that some good shopping will result in lower costs.

That type of bushing (there are two or three sizes) makes it easy to make an idler pulley. I think that they are manufactured by a couple of pulley manufactures. I think our supplier was Dodge. Here is a link to their idler bushing manual: https://library.e.abb.com/public/9b54ee ... 04-610.pdf.

Jim

Walter:. Interesting that the factory belt is so close to the exhaust.

Jim: I am using an idler pulley I already have.

Finished belt drive today.

Now we can take it on the hiway!!!