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Belt tightening tricks

Rfreeman

Rfreeman

Well-known member
Have JC Super Savers at the washes and just wondering if you veteran guys have any tricks to tighten up the pump/motor belts?

Typically for me it's a 2 man job someone behind the stand pushing on the back of pump while another tightens up half inch bolts on the front of the stand.

Any better ways to approach this that you guys would share, thanks!
 
I use a 28 oz. Estwing steel handle framing hammer. Hook the claw end behind the manifold, push the hammer head against the front rail of the stand and pull down. I can easily tighten the belt with one hand and tighten up the right side pump rail nuts with the other.
 
Check this thread.

Air Compressor Belt

Yesterday I put a new motor on our compressor and noticed that it had a deformed spot in it. It has been on there since before we bought the wash three and a half years ago. It is a Kevlar reinforced type belt and an inch shorter than the manual suggests. It is supposed to be a 4L500. When I...
www.carwashforum.com www.carwashforum.com
 
Tightening the belts should be one of the top things a manufacturer thinks about when building a pump stand. Self serve equipment I sold 35 years ago had a simple and easy mechanism to do that. Yes, this is the stupid things we put up with. You can actually make your own with a few pieces of scrap stainless and some hardware.
 
Forgot to add this. My pumps have a factory tightening setup. When I tightened the last time the belts were snug but as I looked at the two pulleys, they were out of alignment. The factory made the pump mounting holes so big that if you just tighten them up, the pump pully points to a different place than the motor pully. So I had to use a 3' pry bar to align them while keeling the belts tight. The old Magic Wand system is still the best I've seen.
 
The best method is a couple blocks of wood and a 2 x 4 and pry the motor and pump to the desired tension. My old equipment has a bolt that pulls the pump straight back to tighten the belts. Mac right I don’t know why more manufactures do it that way, I guess it the cost of the added engineering.
 
Randy, c’mon. The only engineers at manufacturing used to drive a train. Do you know what engineers use for birth control? Their personality.
 
I made mine out of a turnbuckle (With loops/eyes) and 2 pieces of 1/2" plywood. Cut a small vee or radius in each of the pieces of plywood and bolt the plywood to the turnbuckle. Makes it easy to custom fit to your pully spacing. There's no way I'd tighten belts without something to hold in place. I like putting a straight edge on the outside of the pulleys to make sure they are perfectly aligned...There's no way to do that using a crow bar...
 
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Cheap and Cheesy....But works great in a pinch! Worked so well, I didn't have to go buy the commercial model!

belt_tightener.jpg
 
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