Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Currently stripping the engine for a rebuild. It is fitted with a toothed belt drive for the water pump and alternator, see attached photo. Does anyone have any experience of this type of drive and is it good or bad for the water pump? Ignore the toothed wheel, a PO fitted fuel injection, no longer fitted, and left this on.

Dave

No experience but I would expect it to be very good for the water pump, the toothed belt should have much lower tension and side loading than a V belt.

I have the same setup on my 71 Elan. Car built by Spyder in the UK. Motor origin unknown but the cam cover says Vegatune.

I upgraded to a toothed water pump drive similar to this when I did the TC on my Europa, it relieves the need to apply the tension as with a v-belt (to tighten the belt and prevent slipping), so reduces the tangential force on the water pump shaft, to the benefit of longer bearing life.

Have fun with the engine build-

Bill

Hi Dave,
I have had this same setup on my Elan for the past 9 years, and 40,000 ish miles. I run the belt quite loose, and it appears to put minimal side load on the water pump bearing. The parts are available from Burton Power. The part number for the belt is: FP225D.4
https://www.burtonpower.com/parts-by-fi ... -kent.html
The kit part number is: FP225DK
https://www.burtonpower.com/parts-by-fi ... _group=398

Cheers,
Colin.

Donels wrote:

44A40A65-0C19-4128-9FD9-2C9DB446ECDB.jpeg

Currently stripping the engine for a rebuild. It is fitted with a toothed belt drive for the water pump and alternator, see attached photo. Does anyone have any experience of this type of drive and is it good or bad for the water pump? Ignore the toothed wheel, a PO fitted fuel injection, no longer fitted, and left this on.

Dave

I fitter a toothed belt during an engine rebuild in the 1980s and have retained the same belt to this day! The benefits are reduced belt tension on the water pump, a non slip drive to the dynamo and a long life belt. The only disadvantage of the wider belt is the obstructed view of the timing marks. I subsequently fitted a cartridge type water pump for additional water pump life. I have this setup on both my Elans and convince myself that such upgrades do not effect originality as they are easily reversible. No job on the Elan is more tedious than changing a conventional water pump!

Rebuild is now complete and a new toothed belt obtained. How tight should the belt be? I have it just supporting the alternator weight with the bolts loose, then tightened the clamp bolt. This still seems pretty tight.

Colin, you say you run the belt pretty loose, can you expand on 'loose' ? Those 9 years experience means it can't be far wrong.

Thanks,
Dave