[PUP] Lugger serp belt and spares angst

[Truelove39 at aol.com]

Hi  Scott -
 
You  are not alone!
 
Not  long after I began cruising Seahorse I began having problems with the  
Balmar 165A alternator. The LP668D was then 2 years old (2004). I kept  getting 
dusting, even on a near-new serp belt and began to check for the  reason. 
With a new belt, the tensioner had only minimal travel left before  it hit the 
stop, and that occurred soon after the belt  was broken-in. That left the belt 
too-loose and so it  slipped heated the pulley. That heating eventually burned 
up the  front alternator bearing. When I discovered this I queried Alaska 
Diesel  about the belt, which was a 123464. The parts guy and I decided that the 
shorter  belt, 123463, must be right and I bought one, only to discover it was 
so short  it wouldn't fit at all. Then another round of discussions with ADE, 
which  uncovered the fact that they "never" supplied Balmar alternators and 
that a  L-N machine was installed when it left ADE. The yard that sold and 
installed the  engine had replaced the L-N with the Balmar - evidently the  pulley 
was a bit smaller but they didn't bother to check - and now the  factory belt 
was too long. I'm not sure how the PO got away without problems -  maybe 
that's why he had a surplus of belts aboard. The fix, of course, was to  get a belt 
that would allow a 180-degree wrap on the alternator pulley and put  the 
tensioner mid-travel when new. Since ADE didn't have anything that would  fit, I 
determined the correct belt length and ordered one from Michigan  Industrial 
Belting for about 1/3 the price of a Lugger belt. It fit correctly  and I 
haven't had any problems since.
 
By  the way, Scott, you might want to check your spares for a "engine low 
temp  switch." This switch, used exclusively on the LP668D engine. When the  
engine is first started, the injection timing is advanced 10 degrees - when  the 
water temp hits 140 the switch opens and retards the timing back to  normal. 
You can ID the switch (on the thermostat housing) because it has a  2-pole 
connector on 2" leads. If this switch is bad, the timing will be advanced  all the 
time, which will lower the EGT 50 degrees and make the engine noisier  (you 
can hear the difference). A dead give-away of switch failure will be  that if 
the switch fails (closed) the current draw on the positive wire to the  PH 
engine panel will be about 22 amps. That will show up as low voltage  (due to 
excessive drop) on the engine panel voltmeter and the red and  purple wires on the 
key switch will be overly warm, as will the black Merc  connector.
 
Regards,
 
John
"Seahorse"


> Today I went to consult my spares list and guess what?   The number on the
belt was R-123463 and my spare was R-123464.  My first  thought was I had
made a mistake transcribing the number.  I found the  original spares list
that Nordhavn provided (an excel spreadsheet probably  from another boat) and
sure enough it specified R-123464, the belt I had as  spare.  So now I'm
thinking I have definitely written the wrong number  down.  So I call Barb
the parts goddess at Hatton in Seattle (206)283-5501 and she tells me if I
can get her  the serial number of my engine, she can tell me exactly what
belt was put on  the motor when it shipped to China.  Well I get her  the
number and she confirms the mechanic was spot on, R-123463, not  464.  So I
figure, one is a replacement for the other, not true says  Barb, a 463 is
1,613 mm long and a 464 is 1,635mm long.  The different  size belts
accommodate different alternators, so between my boat and someone  else's
they changed alternators, resulting in a different belt.   






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