Homemade Serpentine Brackets

[LiLDrumKing3]

Originally Posted by PGSigns

I think there is an 1 1/2" difference between the two. That is a lot to fill. I am kind of old school and was brought up to use the kiss method. So I design using as much off the shelf and the bare minimum of parts. From more than 35 years of drag racing here are a couple of things I have seen. Water pump spacers leak over time with the thermal expansion and creep from load. Pulley spacers never seem to keep the pulleys as true as them being directly bolted up. Long bolts with spacers flex and have problems with staying tight. The load that the belt puts on brackets is higher than most folks think during acceleration. I have built some brackets I knew were plenty strong and broke them. Good luck with this and keep us posted on how it is progressing.
Jimmy

Thank you for all your information. It is definitely something I need to consider. Keep in my, this model is not finished. There are still some things that I have left out, such as reinforcement on the bracket it self. Also, the long tubular looking spacers in the picture will be shorter, thicker and threaded. I drew the ones in the model just to show the spacing of the two brackets. I also have something in mind to keep the tension steady, but I wont really know what's going to work till I put it all together and test it out.

I'm trying to get an updated model that shows a little more information. But I'm pretty new to that program I'm working and it's not going as fast as I would like

The purpose of this bracket system was to have the nice clean look of the March Performance kit and not spend a fortune on it. I am willing to dedicate the time and work to design a bracket I'm happy with, so I will just keep adjusting it till it's perfect. This isn't going in a truck that I will be racing with, but you never know I might use this design on some other motors as well.

[PGSigns]

You heading in the right direction. On the cost side using the stock parts that are in the junk yards by the thousands should be considered. Like I said in the first post using a long pump, the stock crank pulley and water pump pulley along with the stock power steering pump and bracket would save you a ton of work and reduce your parts count. It gets all those parts in the same plane and just leaves you the alternator and ac to match to that distance. Have you though about the belt routing?
Jimmy

[LiLDrumKing3]

Finally got back working on this bracket. I thought I lost all my drawings after my computer crashed, and kind of gave up on the whole project. Ironically, I work in a metal shop now and run a CNC laser, which gave me the idea to see if I could dig up some old drawings deep in my emails. Luckily, I did find some and they weren't far from ready to start prototyping.

A few days ago I cut my first prototype of the bracket out of thin 16 gauge steel to see if the mounting holes to the engine block were going to line up.
[IMG][/IMG]

The mounting holes weren't far off and I decided, after a few modifications, to go ahead and cut a second bracket. I stacked multiple layers of metal to get the desired thickness of the front and back brackets.
[IMG][/IMG]

I'm a little off on mounting holes for the A/C compressor and have to change the shape of the bracket a little bit, but every step is getting closer and closer to the final product. Having the CNC makes it a lot easier to get through prototyping!
[IMG][/IMG]

[The Rocknrod]

Good work, very interesting.