isolator questions

[Kirghiz]

I'd wait and see what zztunnell comes up with before making a decision on anything, but if you did decide to do a swap I would look for something that comes stock with a serpentine belt system and will match up with your transmission. Another option would be to find an engine that comes with a similar model year Monte Carlo that is in the same general condition as your Regal.

[wooferdog]

I want to see pics of the O2 sensor hooked up to the rat

[zztunnell]

My nephews foaming at the mouth over that digital dash,lol.If get a chance could you post a pic of it lit up.We are curious what it looks like.Ive never seen one.Thanks.

[ttocs]

I had to laugh as well as you would need to feed any rodents some steroids to get them to turn a wheel that would work a 300A alt.... I would probably go with a cat or two myself, about time we made some good use of them....

[Kirghiz]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/fe ... 01615.html
ferrets man, ferrets........

[zztunnell]

Is this your setup? uh ok it says file too big max size is 1MiB. What the hell is a "MiB"? as far as i know my camera doesnt have a "Men in Black" setting,lol. Seriously how big? I know pixels. Is there a max pixel size ?

[zztunnell]

Finally got it up! Ok Lets start from scratch. Ive reread both threads. Do you for sure have a charging problem? Or are you thinking you do because of belt squeal? We need to find that out first.
This accesory drive is a blessing and a curse. The blessings are the AIR pump and AC comp. brackets are great for adding alternator/s with minimal fabrication and the lay out of accesories leaves plenty of room,and the curses.
The curses start with the accesories being mounted so far from the crank centerline causing alignment and 'belt slap' issues. Along with some weird power steering pump mounts.

Heres where I would start. Ill help you all can to sort this out. 1- find out for sure if you are having charging issues with alternator in original mounting location(is alt. up to snuff? putting out like it should?Im assuming this is where 200amp Ohio alt. is mounted. If not this is where it should be. 2-really take the time to eyeball all belts and pulleys inline. First look down the belt line.Are they PERFECTLY straight with the pulleys? Especially look at the Alt and power str. pump. Str. pump can be leaned in or out because of bracket design. Hard to tell in pic but Zach's(nephew) is leaned out rubbing the alt. belt. 3-Take off all belts and using a straight edge check all pulley alignments and adjust to see if they can be adjusted straight with belts off. 4-Check 2nd alt. alignment same way. I say check this last because of fabricated brackets. 5-Spin water pump pwer str. pump and alt. pulleys by hand. Looking for any lateral movement at all and check that they spin freely and easily. At 12oclock position grab fan blade @ top push/pull it forward and backward. If there is any lateral movement front to back @ water pump pulley. Replace water pump. This is best way to check if water pump is about to go out. 6-With all belts removed. Unplug the batt connector from coil on top of distributor.Have someone crank on engine while you closely watch the crank pulley for wobble. Also watch the harmonic balancer for wobble. GM balancer are notorious spin on the hub causing weird vibrations and timing issues. I have even seen them come forward putting enough pressure on crank pulley to make it wobble. Plug batt connector back in dist. 7- Install pwr steering belt and align perfectly. Start car. Idle,rev up,hold rpm's(2000 or so) listen for any squeals,rattles. 7-Install original mounted alt. belt and repeat step 7.
If all is straight,squeal and rattle free. We can install 2nd alt belt and start and listen for anything.
Once you can find the time to do these checks. Let me know what you find and we can go from there.
I beleive I can piece together a serpentine pulley belt setup for the originally mounted alternator ONLY if need be,but it would only be the alt. pulley and water pump pulley. If this is the case we may need to step up to the POWERMASTER XS 300amp SPL alternator at that time and run it on system and whatever 100 or so amp alt. in 2nd location for the car.
If you have any questions feel free to call me @ (423)277-two thousand2=00-0. After 6pmEST I should be home anyday and have access to Zach's Regal.
Good luck!

[oldschoolpgfan1]

Pics of the digital dash are on this forum... go to the installs part and look at 1986 regal with 6000 zpa watts.... i was under the name "more0.5'sthanyou" at the time. you can see a pic of it there...

[oldschoolpgfan1]

Here is what it looks like now.

[oldschoolpgfan1]

2nd alternator passenger side

[oldschoolpgfan1]

Second alternator belt to pulley under fan.

[oldschoolpgfan1]

Overhead view

[oldschoolpgfan1]

More pics

[oldschoolpgfan1]

Now i think my 2nd alternator belt to pulley under fan is where the smog pulley is for smog pump but not sure. and was wondering why i have a 3 grove pulley and also if our belts match in place where they are suppose to be like my powersteering belt. and which pulley the crank can be on. everything seems in line but id need someone who knows alot about this to help me. Also do i need more belts to be evenly distributed in front to get full balance of power. and is running only a second alternator belt on the passenger side enough? Its just pulled
real tight no tensioner.

[LowandLoud]

That is quite the pile of belts you have there!
The pulley behind the fan is your water pump pulley. The one directly below that, is your crank pulley. Behind that, is your harmonic balancer. To me, it looks as if your 2nd alt is mounted to the old a/c or smog pump bracket. My brothers 87 Jimmy has a similar looking bulky bracket for his a/c. As long as everything is spinning with a belt on it, there is no need for more belts for "balance". It does not take much to put the pulleys out of alignment. Like that spacer on the top of the 2nd alt. If that is 1/8" long or short, it is out of alignment. It is hard to tell from the pics if everything is in line but if you discover they are, your harmonic balancer may be the issue. The older cars didnt use tensioners, just a slotted bracket to pull out the slack. Using a tensioner on your 2nd alt is not necessary. If you notice, there is not one on your 1st alt.
Good luck man, i know the pain of chasing down issues that arent easy to diagnose. Dont give up!

LL

[zztunnell]

Kinda hard to tell much from pics. Everything looks the same as zachs except for the passenger side brackets and pulley. Could have had a different AIR pump or AC compressor depending on what part of country it came from and required emissions. My guess is the third pulley at the crank was for AIR and AC. If you can take a pic with a lil more lighting of the second alt. and belt. Try to get as inline on both axis as possible looking from side of car in straight down the top of belt. Almost like your pic of second ..alt. iust a lil more to the left. It looks like that belt alignment may be a tad off. Also looks like it maybe really close to bottom of waterpump pulley. If sec alt. is only on.. the system,take that belt off and drive car around at different rpms and loads on engine see if it squeals.

[zztunnell]

Did you ever get that squealing sorted out?

[mvpolo2k3]

not sure if someone said this already, but ive never liked the diode based isolators. They have anywhere from .5 to 1V drop across the diodes, and get very hot under high amperage. I have always used the PAC-200 solenoids to switch batteries on and off. You can run as many as you want in parallel. I usually hook them up to a switch as well as accessory, so you can use one battery to jump start the car if needed. you can also put one on each rear battery, and turn them on one at a time while charging to keep your alternator happy. just my $.02

[ttocs]

I was set on doing my entire system with phoenix gold gear from the connectors to the cables and even got a big old isolator to use. After seeing how big it was and the voltage loss I went with the pac relay as well and the battery monitoring system from pac as well to make sure they are all charged completely. I too added a switch in case it was cold as the little kinetic 600 battery cranks it but I am willing to bet on a cold morning it might need the 1800 to help push it around but with those two the starter practically twists itself out of the block.

I have another isolator though if anyone wants one, can never have enough right?

[oldschoolpgfan1]

Well I've been very busy. on a good note i was able to track down all my stolen zpa amps. ironically they were in possession of another guy on this forum. he posted a pic and a ad on craigslist and i was able to recover them after a lengthy negotiation. The odds of that are crazy but it happened. they are home now and Im happy to get them back. other than that i haven't began to try and figure out my stereo problems yet. I've been thinking about doing some re wiring and trying different amps. Ill keep you posted.

[mvpolo2k3]

Ttocs im glad im not the only one who doesnt like the diode based ones

[LowandLoud]

Didnt realize your gear was jacked. That sucks man. I hope there wasn't much damage to the car. Good to hear you got it all back though, you're right, that is a crazy coincidence.

This is another good reason to join this forum. Unfortunately, stereo's get stolen. Belonging to a far reaching community of like minded enthusiasts just broadens the net and increases the chances that somebody somewhere will run across the stuff.

LL

[ttocs]

holy is ya got them back?!

[zztunnell]

Cool! Glad everything worked out for you. Some of us are'nt so lucky. If you need any help or want me to dig further on the serpentine belts just holla ,Ill be here,