The Cal-look Lounge

I was about to order a CB billet top pulley for my alternator, but have been warned off by someone who said theirs wore out due to a faster revving engine.

My next choice is a the hardened steel one "spin-tru" from bugpack, or is a stock one just fine and I am going over the top?

I was directed away from both of those and opted for the Flat 4 zinc-galvanised type one!

So far so good..!

Hogwash, I have the CB billet pulley and it's great.  Runs true with no wobble.  I have a number of friends that run them without issue.

It was me that warned him off, mine was ruined in about 5k miles - though I used a toothed belt rather than a solid one.  Always had it at right tension - just seemed to allow slippage which then wore it away.  As soon as the anodizing went through the wear rate accelerated extremely quickly and it constantly needed belt adjustments or new belts due to the groove. 

Not sure if it was the regular high revving in gear or the free revving when not in gear - but in any case it was ruined very quickly.

I'll try and dig out the pictures.  I am now running a nice OEM pulley from a dynamo

Flat 4 pulley stripped the thread off my dynamo, get a VW one, they knew what they were doing

Go with 356/912 pulley, smaller and will spin faster, a little pricy but worth it. Jim Ratto that's on here can hook you up. And there NEW.


Ted

i use an original vw pulley removed from a 75 beetle. never had any issues.

just got the 912 pulley from Jim havent used them yet.

okay this thread is really throwing a spanner in the works.

Seems some people have had a problem with an aftermarket pulley at some point.

I don't need to run the smaller 912 pulley.  My engine is dry sump with a stock sized pulley and an external cooler in the UK! So don't want to over cool it.

I will try and source a NOS VW pulley, don't want to use my beaten up old one.

A lot of problems with worn pulleys are usually due to misalignment and wrong tension, stock is best but I've used CB without issues.

Stock pulley (German)

I use the Flat4, but I´m not totally happy about the tolerances, it seems a little "big" fitting on the axle. Also pretty heavy. I´d go with an old original.

I use a flat-4 too. My engine just kept snapping belts with a cheapo chinese chrome one when there was say.. a lack of traction and the rpms climbed suddenly. Not had any problems with the new one. Although as said above, it is a heavy piece but I couldn't source an OE german pulley at the time.

Genuine are best IMHO, but we've found the Spin true ones to be a good second - I've got one on my car and we've got a bunch on customer's cars that have been fine. Certainly a lot better than the Taiwanese ones that chew alternators!

99% of pulley failures are due to people not putting enough shims between the halves, when they tighten the nut up the belt appears tight
( which it is ) but they are not making a  " crush" on the shims, they have simply wedged the belt. If you drive it in this state it doesnt take long for the pulley to eat itself.

The best way to avoid this is to start with more shims than needed, so when the nut is tight the belt is loose, then taking out one shim at a time and re-tighten the nut and re-iterate untill you get to the right tension.

When taking those shims out from between the pulley halves one at a time, add them under the nut and bell washer (NOT to your tool box).  You need ten shims to make
the right thickness for making the "crush" whether they're between the halves or on top of the outer pulley half.

Anyone know of anywhere that still has original pulleys or is it just a case of trying to find a second hand one.

I run a stock German OE alternator pulley. I run it with a Gates 7355 belt and never had any issues.

(http://www.glenn-ring.com/temp/pulley.jpg)

I'm going to be doing this soon and haven't done research yet. I do know there is a specific number of shims for that shim pac. What is the number? I've a bunch in a cup somewhere in my shop. I'll be useing a OEM pulley because I have one or two in that black hole of my garage.

Hi!

There should be 7 shims in total.

Nice greetings!
Marcel

Gee Wiz Guys Cant you read up a few posts?
Its 10 shims not 7...... Sarge Worked for VW most of his life he knows......

http://m.wikihow.com/Change-a-Fan-Belt-on-an-Aircooled-VW-%28Volkswagen%29-Beetle

Good advice about the shims. It's important to tighten the nut properly too. This is the way I do it. With a hand socket wrench I tighten the nut slowly, allowing the pulley to turn the engine over a little to seat the belt in the pulley and let the pulley halves snug up together. Then I use my impact gun and tighten the nut exactly a quarter turn more and it's done. Do not over tighten!

Yeah, and I got the scars to prove it ;)  I like OEM 043 903 109 pulleys the best, too... at least until having
to cough up about $60.  I see lots of outfits on the web selling what appears to be a nice, gold colored OEM
pulley for $15.95; you get what you pay for.

Some of the $15 ones have a built-in detonation feature. So you kinda get a lot for the price.

Hi!
I thought its 10 too and i took a look at the reparaturleitfaden http://www.volkswagen-classicparts.de/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/Reparaturleitfaeden/Reparaturleitfaden_Typ_1_1975-85/repleitfaden_typ1_85_seiten_9_78.pdf at page 10 and there are just 7 shims in the picture.

I dont know now 7 or 10 ....

Nice greetings
Marcel

Going into the black hole where did I put that Bentley book.

Many aftermarket shims are thicker than OG VW ones.  So 10 OG washers are the same thickness as 7 new ones.  You would need to measure how thick 10 OG washers are and then match that total thickness to new washers. - it could be any number.

Cheers
Phil

I had an aftermarket pulley detonate on me at highway speed once. It broke my distributor cap and rotor, put a hole in my decklid and left me stranded 15 miles from home. Old OEM or 356/912 OEM are all I will ever use.

Yep, I agree. I've fought so many pulleys in my VW life, Brazil "OE", German black ones, "heavy duty", no-name rinky dink crap, chrome $3 ones... they all sucked. The only pulleys I'd dare to put on my car now is OE genuine pulley Sarge is talking about, or the big $ Porsche 912 pulley.
But no matter what you use, if you don't shim it as Darren and Sarge stated, you will be walking!