Fan Belt

This turned out to be a more important job than I first realised. If I hadn't had a temperature gauge in the van 'm sure that I would have blown the engine up. It was on a trip to Birmingham that I noticed there may be a problem (although there were signs before this). I'd noticed that the van was running a little hot on the trip up there (150miles) but assumed it was to do with the fact that I'd just fitted a new tinware seal and carburettor which I'd assumed was running a little lean). On the way back though I noticed that at 60mph the van was running at 130degrees on the temp gauge, I was constantly slowing to 50mph just to keep the temp below 120.

Reality check

I'd returned home at 8pm and set about preparing for work in the morning (I had to be up at 5am) when I got a knock on the door to say that I had a flat tire (thanks to the neighbours). Not a problem I thought as I'd just had a new tire fitted and it was on the spare wheel, how wrong I was.

To change the tire I needed to move the van forward but it wouldn't start. I opened the engine bay to find the fan belt so loose it could be pulled off the pulley. Now I knew where the overheating was coming from.

I'd also noticed a rattle which seemed to be coming from the dynamo but it was really coming from this

Which is supposed to be slotted. In this state it was just rattling around and causing the fan belt to slip. This actually wore the belt down to the braiding and caused the belt to slip.

None of this made the generator light come on though so in the cab the only sign I had was the temperature.

The Flat tire

I managed to jump start the van and got to work changing the tire ... or I would have done if the Hal fords wheel brace hadn't gone and bent. So the van stayed where it was until I got the pulley fixed and could get the van to the local tire bay.

Replacing the belt and pully.

Thanks must go to AK( Keith of Mos Eisley Volkswagen Club) at this point as I was having loads of trouble getting the old one off. He reassured me that I wouldn't damage the generator so I set to it with two large screwdrivers and a lot of sweat. I did manage to break the old pulley twice with the screw drivers but managed to remove it after about an hour (it looked like the original balanced pulley so it had probably been on their for over 30 years). This is the point at which things took another (self inflicted turn). After a couple of hour of being plied with red wine from my helper (cheers Charlie) I offered up the new pulley to check that it fitted (at this point I was going to take a break). Charlie suggested that a socket would be perfect for tapping the new pulley on and handed me a perfectly sized socket. At which point I picked up the hammer and hammered it on. Then I threw the hammer across the drive and swore loudly. As I'd only been offering up the pulley to check the bore size, I'd held it in the best position to see if it would fit, only then to hammer the little bas!@£d on the wrong way round ) Luckily it came off ok and I immediately put it on the right way round before having a cigarette break). The rest went as planned.

Now the van runs much quieter and cooler.