V belt to sepentine / chevy 350

ChrisM

ChrisM

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
Boone
I have an older style motor with the V belt setup that I'm looking to put a serpentine setup on. I have a complete '95 tbi that I'm going to rob the setup off of... that is, if there are no known issues with doing this. And/or if anyone has any input to why it is a bad idea. The only thing I can figure as of now is that if I lose the belt, I lose everything as opposed to one belt, one issue.
From what I've read, other than the obvious locations being different on some parts, one of the main differences is the water pump will turn the "wrong way"... but, can I just rob the water pump from the tbi as well? And if that is doable, I've read something about having to tap and plug a hole on the block that the newer style blocks/water pumps do not use.
My brain is starting to swell I think, I'm going to go poke around some more and come back to this. Maybe, I'll even fix my run on sentences. If you can make sense of that, awesome, if not, let me know what more info you may need as I'm sure I've let stuff out.
Thanks for the help,
Chris
 
I think I may have it figured out, but I'm not 100% done. So, back to the top to see if anyone has any knowledge on this.
 
yes swap water pump to the reverse rotation (its NOT a reverse flow) swap the brackets over, depending on the year of the block it may not have one of the top/head bolts. I would advise NOT attempting to drill/tap that. There are plenty of other bolts holding it on. If you remove the air pump (if it had it) you can do a reverse wrap coming off the crank pully to allow you to bypass that with the same size belt. Otherwise just start bolting shit up it will make sense...
 
I started pulling stuff the other day. I'm not sure what year my motor is, previous owner bought it as a crate motor. All of the mounting holes are there except the one you mentioned and also, one on the intake where the brace mounts too. After I get it swapped over and i feel it needs a brace, I'm sure I can make one work. Umm, so as of right now, seems pretty straight forward.

One more question I ran in to... Do i swap the harmonic balancers as well? The one on the tbi is bigger in diameter and width I believe.
 
Yup, it will swap over... I swapped the old thin dinky 1972 balancer over to the 1991 that's on it now... Watch the threads when your installing it. (Get/barrow a cheep installer tool. (basically a long threaded stud w/ a bearing and nut to draw it on)
 
I done it to mine also and one thing that hasn't been mentioned is the alt plug.It's different for the serp alt.Painless make's a plug(I have the part # somewhere) or you might can make one. Also they make a A/C comp delete pulley/bracket if you want to do away with it.I have that # also.
 
1-tonmudder said:
I done it to mine also and one thing that hasn't been mentioned is the alt plug.It's different for the serp alt.Painless make's a plug(I have the part # somewhere) or you might can make one. Also they make a A/C comp delete pulley/bracket if you want to do away with it.I have that # also.
Click to expand...

If you happen to have those part numbers, that would be great.

Everything is starting to come together, but I overlooked one thing... I was just going to swap water pumps from engine to the other, but now I've realized that the pump from the tbi does not have a inlet/outlet for the heater as where the one from the older motor does.

Is there another way to route the line?
Do they make a reserve rotation in the housing I need? Or, can I swap the pumps to the opposing housings?
I don't know, what do I do?

Chris
 
chris on tbi the inlet to the heater core comes from the intake manifold and the outlet (on chevy trucks) goes to the top of the radiator. you could just try running it w/o the heater core and possibly a lower degree thermostat to compansate. dunno for sure b/c this is one of the problems i have been thinking about for my conversion.
 
I've been searching all day and I think I've got it figured out. Seems too simple and I don't know why I didn't look for this first. Looks like they make a reverse rotation water pump with the threaded outlet that I need.
 
I used a water pump from a 89 1/2 ton. Only issue I had was I needed a swivel style thermo housing.
ai140.photobucket.com_albums_r6_clarkjw24_86_20Trail_20rig_100_4520.jpg
 
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