Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 06:58:56 -0400
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Photos of broken alternator pulley
In-Reply-To: <CA+n284OrEx0LRiWBx+8p8Z63t+5+X7sGHnzLRG+cBy_hzoXpwA@mail.gmail.com>
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From the factory the two piece pulleys do not use the key. This creates a
self-tightening effect should the pulley start to slip. This failure was
most likely the result of the pulley not being properly torqued.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
pickle vanagon
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 6:14 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Photos of broken alternator pulley
Here are the promised photos.
http://wesandmaria.com/images/pulleys.jpg
http://wesandmaria.com/images/shaft.jpg
The pulley had not turned appreciably past the notch, just a tad as part of
the failure but was then stuck in position. The sharp edge where it split
was cutting up belts.
It looks to me that the notch on the shaft may actually have been the
initial failure point, since both pully halves were chewed up by the notch.
(Notice the notch on the good half rounded out a bit). Both notches were
good when installed on the shaft the previous day. It looks to me like that
shaft notch pivoted into the shaft on one end allow the pulleys to be pulled
up over it.
Thoughts?
Wes
On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 7:03 PM, pickle vanagon
<greenvanagon@gmail.com>wrote:
> Just wanted to let everyone know what happened.
>
> We were in Pittsburgh last week where I was borrowing space in my parents'
> garage to swap our engine for a rebuilt 2.1 from Gary Leblanc. (I'll
> post details on that job later.)
>
> After some initial miles around Pittsburgh, we were on a break-in
> style drive back to New York on small roads when our alternator pulley
> self-destructed. One of the halves split and separated. I promise to
> post photos. Anyways, this must have torn up the belt in short order.
>
> I have discovered an extra benefit of having an auxiliary battery
> setup in a westy. Normally I think the alternator light might be easy
> to miss for a minute or two which could result in overheating quite
quickly I imagine.
> In our case, I heard the *whack* of the stancor relay shutting off,
> looked at the dash and saw the alternator light on, and knew
> immediately we had a problem. Shut off the engine right away, pulled
> over and found the chewed up belt and destroyed pulley.
>
> After I sent the email to the list, Ryan in Johnstown really came
> through for me and took *his* alternator out of his vanagon to lend to
> us (a relative of mine in the area picked it up for us), which got us
> back on track. Made it to Granny Grose's late, but it was still fun
> to see all the busses and vanagons. Today we finished the drive back
> to NYC. I'll be sending Ryan his alternator back, and I have a spare
> in Pittsburgh that will be sent to me.
>
> All in all, thanks to the kindness of strangers, things turned out
> quite well!
>
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