Serpentine Belt-- Updated Thread, Clewitt System Install Photos Options

[Robarabian]

Ok, here is my stab at an installation thread.

1) I am a home mechanic, not the Red Barn. Please be constructive, I am sure there are several better ways, but this is what I did and it works... at least so far.

2) You will see a red fan and a silver fan. I had to switch them in the end, for alignment purposes. I haven't figured out why yet.

3) I love the way it turned out.

Here goes nothing...:

You start by removing your pulleys from both the fan and the crank. The crank one goes on easy, and I used a new bolt that I bought with the kit from Clewitt.


The instructions say to make sure there are no burrs on your fan. This is important. It was a tight fit, I ended up doing a bit of sanding and cleaning up the fan pulley area to get the Clewitt pulley to fit on and off. It says you can use shims to make sure everything is straight.

I used my 911 cam chain straight edge that I got from Stomski Racing to line up the pulleys.

Once you know they are in alignment, you need to mount the tensioner. In my case, I had to fabricate a bracket. On the left side, the tins would be in the way on my particular engine. I used the right side mount bolt.

Note: Clewitt's tensioner is on an eccentric, so it can be tensioned from either side, it is a universal as far as that goes. It works at about any angle.

I used a beefy angle mount I had, and a piece of straight / flat bar. After measuring it up, I mig welded both sides, and ground em down a bit since I am not a super welder.

I drilled the mounting holes and mounted it up. Once it is in place, I fiddled with where I wanted it. I notched my angle mount so it would sort of catch my engine mount and lock into place to avoid any rotation due to tension. I got lucky here.

After test fitting it and tensioning it, I shortened one end and then painted it black. Clewitt pre-threads it, so I noticed the tensioner wasn't in perfect alignment. I used a few washers between the mount I made and the tensioner to shim it forward slightly and it popped into perfect alignment.

It looks pretty slick and the belt change is as simple as loosening the eccentric bolt, rotating the tensioner either direction and removing the belt. You re-tension it and allow for 1/4 inch deflection. Richard Clewitt said not to over tension it, or you can either put wear on the alternator bearing or the tensioner, but he said it is designed that the tensioner will fail before an alternator bearing. Replacements are pretty cheap.

You shouldn't have to fabricate anything if you are using the Rich Johnson type mount, as it has the provisions for the tensioner to bolt directly to. This is just what I had to do.

See photos.

[ClayPerrine]

What I did on my 2.4L with this same setup is to use a timing belt tensioner from a Nissan VG30 engine to tension the belt. I put an extension on the motor mount to bring the right hand arm up higher, and mounted the tensioner on it. It is eccentric, so twisting the tensioner makes the belt tighter.

I did this years ago on my 2.4L. I did a search on here looking for the thread with the pictures of this. I found the thread, but the pictures just show "IPB Image".

I will see if I can locate them on my file server. Lots of crap there so it may take some time.

[Robarabian]

I'd love to see close ups of that Clay. I really liked the quality of Clewitt's setup, I just dont have room with the mount I had to make...

What I did on my 2.4L with this same setup is to use a timing belt tensioner from a Nissan VG30 engine to tension the belt. I put an extension on the motor mount to bring the right hand arm up higher, and mounted the tensioner on it. It is eccentric, so twisting the tensioner makes the belt tighter.

I did this years ago on my 2.4L. I did a search on here looking for the thread with the pictures of this. I found the thread, but the pictures just show "IPB Image".

I will see if I can locate them on my file server. Lots of crap there so it may take some time.