Serpentine Belt-- Updated Thread, Clewitt System Install Photos Options

[Robarabian]

Ok, here is my stab at an installation thread.

1) I am a home mechanic, not the Red Barn. Please be constructive, I am sure there are several better ways, but this is what I did and it works... at least so far.

2) You will see a red fan and a silver fan. I had to switch them in the end, for alignment purposes. I haven't figured out why yet.

3) I love the way it turned out.

Here goes nothing...:

You start by removing your pulleys from both the fan and the crank. The crank one goes on easy, and I used a new bolt that I bought with the kit from Clewitt.


The instructions say to make sure there are no burrs on your fan. This is important. It was a tight fit, I ended up doing a bit of sanding and cleaning up the fan pulley area to get the Clewitt pulley to fit on and off. It says you can use shims to make sure everything is straight.

I used my 911 cam chain straight edge that I got from Stomski Racing to line up the pulleys.

Once you know they are in alignment, you need to mount the tensioner. In my case, I had to fabricate a bracket. On the left side, the tins would be in the way on my particular engine. I used the right side mount bolt.

Note: Clewitt's tensioner is on an eccentric, so it can be tensioned from either side, it is a universal as far as that goes. It works at about any angle.

I used a beefy angle mount I had, and a piece of straight / flat bar. After measuring it up, I mig welded both sides, and ground em down a bit since I am not a super welder.

I drilled the mounting holes and mounted it up. Once it is in place, I fiddled with where I wanted it. I notched my angle mount so it would sort of catch my engine mount and lock into place to avoid any rotation due to tension. I got lucky here.

After test fitting it and tensioning it, I shortened one end and then painted it black. Clewitt pre-threads it, so I noticed the tensioner wasn't in perfect alignment. I used a few washers between the mount I made and the tensioner to shim it forward slightly and it popped into perfect alignment.

It looks pretty slick and the belt change is as simple as loosening the eccentric bolt, rotating the tensioner either direction and removing the belt. You re-tension it and allow for 1/4 inch deflection. Richard Clewitt said not to over tension it, or you can either put wear on the alternator bearing or the tensioner, but he said it is designed that the tensioner will fail before an alternator bearing. Replacements are pretty cheap.

You shouldn't have to fabricate anything if you are using the Rich Johnson type mount, as it has the provisions for the tensioner to bolt directly to. This is just what I had to do.

See photos.

[ClayPerrine]

Ok, here is my stab at an installation thread.

1) I am a home mechanic, not the Red Barn. Please be constructive, I am sure there are several better ways, but this is what I did and it works... at least so far.

2) You will see a red fan and a silver fan. I had to switch them in the end, for alignment purposes. I haven't figured out why yet.

3) I love the way it turned out.

Here goes nothing...:

You start by removing your pulleys from both the fan and the crank. The crank one goes on easy, and I used a new bolt that I bought with the kit from Clewitt.


The instructions say to make sure there are no burrs on your fan. This is important. It was a tight fit, I ended up doing a bit of sanding and cleaning up the fan pulley area to get the Clewitt pulley to fit on and off. It says you can use shims to make sure everything is straight.

I used my 911 cam chain straight edge that I got from Stomski Racing to line up the pulleys.

Once you know they are in alignment, you need to mount the tensioner. In my case, I had to fabricate a bracket. On the left side, the tins would be in the way on my particular engine. I used the right side mount bolt.

Note: Clewitt's tensioner is on an eccentric, so it can be tensioned from either side, it is a universal as far as that goes. It works at about any angle.

I used a beefy angle mount I had, and a piece of straight / flat bar. After measuring it up, I mig welded both sides, and ground em down a bit since I am not a super welder.

I drilled the mounting holes and mounted it up. Once it is in place, I fiddled with where I wanted it. I notched my angle mount so it would sort of catch my engine mount and lock into place to avoid any rotation due to tension. I got lucky here.

After test fitting it and tensioning it, I shortened one end and then painted it black. Clewitt pre-threads it, so I noticed the tensioner wasn't in perfect alignment. I used a few washers between the mount I made and the tensioner to shim it forward slightly and it popped into perfect alignment.

It looks pretty slick and the belt change is as simple as loosening the eccentric bolt, rotating the tensioner either direction and removing the belt. You re-tension it and allow for 1/4 inch deflection. Richard Clewitt said not to over tension it, or you can either put wear on the alternator bearing or the tensioner, but he said it is designed that the tensioner will fail before an alternator bearing. Replacements are pretty cheap.

You shouldn't have to fabricate anything if you are using the Rich Johnson type mount, as it has the provisions for the tensioner to bolt directly to. This is just what I had to do.

See photos.

The only thing I would have for a comment would be that it is better to have the tensioner on the other side of the belt. The side you have it on is under tension, and the other side is not.

Other than that, it is a great installation.

[Robarabian]

I sent the photos to Clewitt to get his opinion. I will have to look into that. My space is limited on the other side it would take a bit more "magic" to make it happen on that side. I'll play around with some ideas for sure.

Thank you for chiming in, you have done this so I trust your knowledge.

Ok, here is my stab at an installation thread.

1) I am a home mechanic, not the Red Barn. Please be constructive, I am sure there are several better ways, but this is what I did and it works... at least so far.

2) You will see a red fan and a silver fan. I had to switch them in the end, for alignment purposes. I haven't figured out why yet.

3) I love the way it turned out.

Here goes nothing...:

You start by removing your pulleys from both the fan and the crank. The crank one goes on easy, and I used a new bolt that I bought with the kit from Clewitt.


The instructions say to make sure there are no burrs on your fan. This is important. It was a tight fit, I ended up doing a bit of sanding and cleaning up the fan pulley area to get the Clewitt pulley to fit on and off. It says you can use shims to make sure everything is straight.

I used my 911 cam chain straight edge that I got from Stomski Racing to line up the pulleys.

Once you know they are in alignment, you need to mount the tensioner. In my case, I had to fabricate a bracket. On the left side, the tins would be in the way on my particular engine. I used the right side mount bolt.

Note: Clewitt's tensioner is on an eccentric, so it can be tensioned from either side, it is a universal as far as that goes. It works at about any angle.

I used a beefy angle mount I had, and a piece of straight / flat bar. After measuring it up, I mig welded both sides, and ground em down a bit since I am not a super welder.

I drilled the mounting holes and mounted it up. Once it is in place, I fiddled with where I wanted it. I notched my angle mount so it would sort of catch my engine mount and lock into place to avoid any rotation due to tension. I got lucky here.

After test fitting it and tensioning it, I shortened one end and then painted it black. Clewitt pre-threads it, so I noticed the tensioner wasn't in perfect alignment. I used a few washers between the mount I made and the tensioner to shim it forward slightly and it popped into perfect alignment.

It looks pretty slick and the belt change is as simple as loosening the eccentric bolt, rotating the tensioner either direction and removing the belt. You re-tension it and allow for 1/4 inch deflection. Richard Clewitt said not to over tension it, or you can either put wear on the alternator bearing or the tensioner, but he said it is designed that the tensioner will fail before an alternator bearing. Replacements are pretty cheap.

You shouldn't have to fabricate anything if you are using the Rich Johnson type mount, as it has the provisions for the tensioner to bolt directly to. This is just what I had to do.

See photos.

The only thing I would have for a comment would be that it is better to have the tensioner on the other side of the belt. The side you have it on is under tension, and the other side is not.

Other than that, it is a great installation.

[jim_hoyland]

Nice presentation Rob (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Cairo94507]

I think that is a significant improvement over the stock setup. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[mb911]

I would love this setup. Need to sell more oil tanks first

[Robarabian]

Ok, I got some feedback from Clewitt, and he also suggested the tensioner to not be on the "loaded" side. Back to the drawing board. Here is what I ended up doing.

I had to sort of make a staircase shaped upright. I used a similar design across it perpendicularly. It was a little thinner due to the area, so I ended up doing a tie in "down the backside of the stairs" and put a floor under the tensioner to give it less resistance to flex. There is not too much stress on the part so it is overbuilt at this point. See photos for update.

Necessity is the mother of all invention I guess. I had to notch a 1/4 x 1/4 area of the tin, but it fits nice now.

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[arbitrary]

@Robarabian how is the tensioner mount working out? Ingenious solution!

[Cairo94507]

Congratulations on getting that sorted. We installed this serpentine belt system from Clewett on my 3.6; the saddest part is you can't see how beautiful it is. Great belt system. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

On my 3.6 all we had to do was knock down one spot per install instructions.

[Montreal914]

Curious as to what made this installation a custom one on your engine? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

Isn't the Clewett setup a bolt-on kit?

Thank you for sharing! It defnitely looks like an improvement over the stock setup. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Robarabian]

Not with the mount I have. I have the one that is like Patrick Motorsports.. two welded mounts with a bar in the middle.


Unfortunately, after all that fabrication ( which I had fun with by the way) I couldn't get it to fit. The mount makes it tough with space against the firewall. I would have had to cut the channel that that holds the rubber engine seal and I didn't want to do that.

With a stock 914-6 mount, it bolts right up. So it sits on the shelf as a pretty piece of well made equipment till I find some non running 911, slap a motor in it and use the setup there.

Curious as to what made this installation a custom one on your engine? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

Isn't the Clewett setup a bolt-on kit?



Thank you for sharing! It defnitely looks like an improvement over the stock setup. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[ClayPerrine]

What I did on my 2.4L with this same setup is to use a timing belt tensioner from a Nissan VG30 engine to tension the belt. I put an extension on the motor mount to bring the right hand arm up higher, and mounted the tensioner on it. It is eccentric, so twisting the tensioner makes the belt tighter.

I did this years ago on my 2.4L. I did a search on here looking for the thread with the pictures of this. I found the thread, but the pictures just show "IPB Image".

I will see if I can locate them on my file server. Lots of crap there so it may take some time.

[Montreal914]

@Robarabian Are you using the Naro mount?

[Robarabian]

Yes. that is the one. I actually really like it for the most part. Makes engine drop or maintenance easy. You can actually loosen the trans mounts and rotate it downward if you need to get to something.. for instance. I did a full trans swap once by pivoting it, bracing the motor and swapping the trans.

Downside is clearance for the Serpentine belt setup, and you really can't get to the crank bolt to turn the motor with a socket. But putting the engine in and taking it out is eZ PZ especially if you are using a lift and a lift table like I do.

@Robarabian Are you using the Naro mount?

[Robarabian]

I'd love to see close ups of that Clay. I really liked the quality of Clewitt's setup, I just dont have room with the mount I had to make...

What I did on my 2.4L with this same setup is to use a timing belt tensioner from a Nissan VG30 engine to tension the belt. I put an extension on the motor mount to bring the right hand arm up higher, and mounted the tensioner on it. It is eccentric, so twisting the tensioner makes the belt tighter.

I did this years ago on my 2.4L. I did a search on here looking for the thread with the pictures of this. I found the thread, but the pictures just show "IPB Image".

I will see if I can locate them on my file server. Lots of crap there so it may take some time.

[Robarabian]

I'd love to see close ups of that Clay. I really liked the quality of Clewitt's setup, I just dont have room with the mount I had to make...

What I did on my 2.4L with this same setup is to use a timing belt tensioner from a Nissan VG30 engine to tension the belt. I put an extension on the motor mount to bring the right hand arm up higher, and mounted the tensioner on it. It is eccentric, so twisting the tensioner makes the belt tighter.

I did this years ago on my 2.4L. I did a search on here looking for the thread with the pictures of this. I found the thread, but the pictures just show "IPB Image".

I will see if I can locate them on my file server. Lots of crap there so it may take some time.

[live free & drive]

The Naro mount puts the engine 1/2” closer to the firewall

[Robarabian]

That would explain why it was so tight... I think Clay's solution may work though.... My mount is what was running in the way, not the pulley...

The Naro mount puts the engine 1/2” closer to the firewall

[mb911]

The Naro mount puts the engine 1/2” closer to the firewall

And also lower in the chassis so the engine seal doesn’t seal. Not a fan of that mount for those 2 reasons

[Robarabian]

My engine seal, seals fine. It is a newly replaced seal, is supple rubber and stretches no problem. An older cracking seal probably not.

The Naro mount puts the engine 1/2” closer to the firewall

And also lower in the chassis so the engine seal doesn’t seal. Not a fan of that mount for those 2 reasons