A/C belt Discussion (again)

[George Des]

Finally got all the original dealer brackets, the alternator(mounted high), the evaporator unit, dryer, and compressor installed in my 67 230SL. Joe Alexander provided me with an additional crank pulley and that is installed. But now I'm stumped ! I still can't figure out how to route the belts to connect up all the accessories--here's what I've got: a crank with slots for three belts--the power steering belt routing is fairly obvious. I can run a belt around the crank pulley slot closest to the engine, around the water pump/fan assembly and then around the compressor clutch pulley. The slot furthest from the engine will take care of the P/S pump. But now here's the problem, I have one crank slot left, but if I try to run a belt between this slot and the alternator, it runs smack into the fan pulley assembly. Is there supposed to be another pulley slot on the wp/fan assembly or is a spacer used to move the single wp/fan pulley out far enough that the alternator belt can be run around this and the second crank slot. Like I said this has really got me stumped. Appreciate any help you guys can give me on this--Thx--George Des

[ja17]

Hello George,
Some W113 cars with A/C did have a double fan pulley and spacer. They also needed longer fan bolts to the waterpump. Where are you positioning the compressor and are you using a new style compressor?
The bracket on sedan engines had an idler pulley to route the belt around the waterpump. Later SL brackets were very different in that they used a double fan belt.
I am not sure that the 230-SL arrangement could have been a bit different from the later W113 SL?

Joe Alexander
Blacklick, Ohio

[George Des]

Joe--Thanks for the reply. What I have is the bracket that is used with a 113. The alternator mounts up high at the 1100 o'clock position and the compressor mounts low where the alternator typcially goes when there is no a/c. The bracket has a double idler pulley at about the six o'clock position. My crank has three belt slots:one very close to the vibration dampener and tow others on the pulley you were abel to provide me. I understand the one furthest from the engine goes to the P/S pump. The one closest to the engine can take care of the water pump/fan and compressor, but there's no way that the middle one can go up to the alternator w/o fouling the fan assembly. Any ideas on where I might be able to locate some fo the parts i may be missing ?

Thanks--George

[n/a]

If you are going to use the later style bracket you will need to replace your water pump and watter pump pully.
the entier arrangement for the 230 vs the 280 are compleately different.
I also have the new style bracket and pully setup i put them in a box and switche over the style provided by bud's benz the one uses the new style rotory compressor that requires alot less horsepower and was a little les truble to install.
attached is a picture of what the arangement for your type of bracket should look like.

Download Attachment: i-3.jpeg
22.31 KB

Jerry P.

[George Des]

Jerry-Thanks. Understand. Do you have the correct part numbers for the water pump and pulley I would neeed to do the setup you included as an attachment. Also what does the Bud's compressor bracket and setup look like ? I'm waiting for "230SL67" to come back witha reply--he said he has a dealer installed system that someohow gets this all right.

George Des

[n/a]

I do not have the part numbers i will leave that to a parts guy.
as for the other style set up i have a photo that i can email you if you are want.


Jerry P.

[George Des]

Jerry--if you've got the photo I'd be interested in seeing it. Pls send to <barbgeo@aol.com>

Thx-George Des

[ja17]

Hello George,
I am operating on memory here; (maybe someone can confirm some of this), I believe the original W113 engines with AC, had an alternator belt driven off the fan/water pump pulley only! These origianl fan/waterpump pulleys had three grooves. The compressor had two belts which ran on the water pump pulley along the way, consequenty driving the alternator. So the alternator belt on these A/C cars never traveled down to the crankshaft pulley.

I like the idea of using the new syle compressor mounted above instead of below, (probably with one compressor belt)and the standard alternator set-up. I do not know how far along you are on the original arrangement.

Joe Alexander
Blacklick, Ohio

[George Des]

Thanks to all for the replies on this. Have reached a number of conclusions after wading through all this. The setups with the earlier cars are definitely different from those on the 280Sl, primarily because of the water pump/fan arrangement and the number of slots on the crank pulley. I believe work arounds can be figured out to make the newer style compressor bracket work on the older cars and I'm going to give that a try. Based on the picture Jerry Pyles sent to me, what I think will work to get around the problem of the single water pump/fan pulley on the older 230's is to locate an idler pulley on a short bracket extension off to the right hand side (just to the left of the distributor). With an idler pulley thus located, I should be able to route a belt around the second crank slot, around the idler and then around the high mounted alternator. Jerry's new style Bud's bracket gave me the idea of the idler and looking at a number of other MB applications, this was a quite common way of routing the belt around the fan assembly. When it is all together I will provide a picture. As a backup, I've contacted Bud's Benz and they will sell just the A/C bracket for thier version of the setup.