I took my engine out of my car.
Repainted all sheet metal, repaired this and that.

Put the engine back in.

Put on a new German belt, it flew off in 10 minutes. And then again.
Put the old belt on, that has flown off twice.
Using a straight edge, I can measure a 1/2 inch misalignment in the pulleys.

I can’t even imagine how they became misaligned.
I would think it could only go back together one way.

The alternator pulley is further out towards front of car.
With the engine pulley closer to rear of car.
The engine pulley seems nice and flush around its surrounding cover stuff.


I can only imagine that the alt pulley is turned around.
So, I can try flipping that.

But is there a spacer behind the engine pulley? I don’t think I ever removed the engine fan/pulley.

It will fly off d/T misalignment. Doesn’t take much either. I once powder coated the washers and such and started throwing belts like it was a competition. @McMark figured it out.

Your fan pulley is out of alignment with your alternator pulley, take a straight edge a look to see which direction it is off.
Probably have to remove some of the sheet metal under the car to make adjustments.

The factory put a spacer between the fan and the crank. If it is missing, it will cause the misalignment you are seeing. If you can't find the spacer, just put an AC pulley in there. They are the same thickness, and the pulley won't hurt a thing.


Hope that helps.
Clay

Somewhere something didn't get back to where it was. I would put $5. on it

Flip the pulley

Flip it.

Yup. I put my pulley on backwards during an alt change and that caused it. PITA!

This is my car, with the old belt for now.
I can see pulleys are not parallel. As well as measure.
The small pulley is too far to the front.

And the small pulley doesn’t look like the one on eBay, which doesn’t have the notches.

(I am trying a looser belt, less tension, to see if it stays on longer)

Anyone have a photo of their pulley? In an engine sitting in their garage?

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I one time removed the pully from, the cast fan blades to paint the pully. I didn't center the big pully on the fan housing and would through a belt at about 4/5000 RPM.

That pulley is on backwards. The cut outs go towards the outside (used to hold the pulley when tightening it).

Somehow, I’ll get that thing turned around while in the car.
Thanks for confirmation.

Replacing the alternator is possible without dropping the motor. You may have to remove the left-front piece of engine tin--I did on my car, but I don't remember if it was actually necessary. There were also a bunch of times that I worked from the top side then the bottom side and went back and forth like that.

Of course, once I got it all back together I forgot to hook up the charging wire to the starter... D'OH! A quick fix, but took a little while to notice the error.

--DD

I just did this a month ago. Yes, left front engine tin has to come off. I also had to remove the left warm air guide from the heat exchanger to have room to pull the alternator. I think you might have room to flip the bracket without taking the alternator out of its bracket though.

I just replaced the alternator last week and did not remove the tin, but probably much easier. There may have been a few choice Italian words used in the process. I did not have the heat pipes installed prior