Vinny P

Rotax,

Thanks, but finding a pump or spacer is not the problem I have. The problem is finding an appropriate pulley, that would keep my belt alignment, when the water pump is spaced out from the block.

Dick,

I made a mistake in the e-mail I sent you. The difference between my pulley and Johns 575 SC pulley is 3/4". His 575's use the same circulating pump as my engine does, so his pulley clears the pumps snout. The 575 pulley is the same diameter as mine as well. Although the 575 pulley is 1 1/2" deeper than mine, I would only need to space the pump out 3/4", due to the fact that the 575 pulley is billet aluminum. The front of that pulley measures about 3/4" thick, as compared to mine, which is very thin steel. There are 2 issues if I were to use that pulley. 1- The damn 575 pulley is ridiculously priced from Merc.
2- My engine bay is tight from bow to stern. Between the thickness of the pulley and the spacer needed, I would be adding 1 1/2" to the front of the pump. As it was, before this , shoehorning the engine into the blige was tight. The engine just cleared between the transom plate and the bulkhead, due to the long steel coupler sticking out of the bellhousing. When lowering the engine in, once the coupler cleared the transom plate and went into the hole, I would gain forward clearance. Remember, I have a 259 Convincor, as compared to you 283. Anyway, if I were to space the pump out 1 1/2", it may not fit in there in 1 piece. Not that its a big deal, but I would have to keep the pump off the engine, drop it in the bilge, then mount the pump. If I have to, I will go that route. However, at this point, my preffered method would be to use a 1/2 " spacer, and locate a suitable pulley with a 1/2" offset. I plan on calling March Pulleys tomorrow.

Plan B... Get a set of 3/4" spacers, bite the bullet and getted robbed from Mercury ( once again ) for the 575 pulley. Unless I find a deal on a used pulley from the OSO brotherhood?

BTW... Hey John, thats your pulley on the right!!

ROTAX454

Ahhhhhhhhhh. Sorry Vinny. I should have looked closer at the first post. Thought you had a V-belt system.

spazboz

iTrader: (2)

If you felt like experimenting, since your old pulley is of no use to you now. If you have a friend who works in a good fabrication shop, you could cut your old pulley in half on a lathe and make a 3/4" ring shaped spacer and weld it in to make your old pulley "deeper". Assuming the inside diameter of that pulley will allow it. The key would obviously be to keep it running true and not out. But a good machinist/fabricator should be able to do this. Never hurts to get Creative. If it doesn't work, nothing gained/nothing lost. The old pulley prob. doesn't hold much value in resale, so its not like you lost a big chunk of change that was supposed to offset the cost of your project by trying.
Nick

Vinny P

I did a full mock up, got it figured out for the 575 pulley. I made up ( with washers ) 1/2" worth of spacers to space the pump out from the block. That along with 1/2" worth of spacers between the pump and the pulley got me perfect alignment. That way, the pump is not too much further out than it was, so the engine will ( hopefully ) clear the bulkhead when going in and out.

Now all I have to do is talk to March Performance tomorrow to see if they have something else that will do, otherwise, 575 pulley it is.

Vinny P

Thats alot of moving around and spacing things out. Too much work and trouble.

Vinny P

I thought of just that. I definetly couldnt get it straight on a bench. I am sure it can be done with the proper tooling.

Mr Gadgets

Vinny,
I bet you could have a machine shop build a new pulley with the proper offset. Not sure if it would be as much as the Merc. I could ask my guy what he would have to have to build one? I see there are no ribs on that pulley. Just doenst look that tough to build from scratch...??

New white belt looks pretty cool!! But how will you keep it clean.. ?? I know you, you'll find a way!

Dick

ezstriper

Vinny, don't take this the wrong way...I would just put a good chain back on, whatever happened before(hopefully was a fluke bad gear) and it will be cured, but if not the belt drive will fail as well, the smal amount of h/p the belt drive will give you probably not worth the aggrivation of thie pully deal....just my .02.....good luck, Rob

Vinny P

Rob,

I agree, my cam gear failure was most likely just a bad gear. I am confident that a new gear set and chain would fix the problem. I have always wanted to go with a belt drive, this just gave me an excuse to do it. Except for the hurting this set up puts on your wallet, I see no down sides. I cant see any reason that the whatever caused the cam gear to fail, will cause the belt to fail. I agree, the horsepower increase by adding a belt is negligable. It wont amount to anything. I solved the pulley problems. Going with the 575 pulley and 2 seperate 1/2" spacers. It aligns perfectly that way.

ezstriper

cool, glad you got it figured out without to much hassel or expense...keep us posted on how it works out....guess we are both about done for the season....Rob