Tricks for Procharger Belt Replacement

[Neil B]

Hi Guys,

My recently-purchased car has a Procharger F1R with an A&A bracket (single idler design) and an 8-rib pulley system. It tossed the belt this weekend. Do you guys have any tips/tricks for replacement? It appears the head unit has to come off. Do I just remove the 5 long bolts to separate the front and rear brackets leaving the front bracket attached to the head unit?

Thanks. --Neil

[alwaysinboost]

Neil, did you ever get an answer to your question?

You have the right idea, the blower should be removed. I just replaced the belt on my F1 and can walk you threw it if you need assistance.

[Neil B]

Originally Posted by alwaysinboost

Neil, did you ever get an answer to your question?

You have the right idea, the blower should be removed. I just replaced the belt on my F1 and can walk you threw it if you need assistance.

Thanks for responding. I actually broke the idler off the PS bracket which is what caused the belt to come off. I just got the new PS bracket, so my car is still apart. It appears my blower bracket is a 1st design A&A bracket that was modified by Wheel-to-Wheel. W2W welded the tensioner solid and added a 2nd idler just under the head unit pulley. It doesn't slip at 14 lbs boost, but it was a complete pain to remove the head unit due to the added idler pulley. The whole blower bracket had to come off the cylinder head. I'll post pics when I get back home this weekend.

--Neil

[alwaysinboost]

Neil, I have the same style bracket (pictured below) and you are going to have a hell of a time putting the belt back on.

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

I had to install the belt on the head unit/bracket first, then install the bracket and feed the belt threw all the accesories. then finally you have to remove the top alternator bolt and push the alt in as much as possible and STRETCH the belt over the alt. pulley.

The first time I tried doing this, even with the tensioner bottomed out, I broke a rib on the belt and it eventually shredded in a thousand miles or so. the second belt I put on didn't rip like the other one and is holding up fine so far.

Maybe you have another way of installing it, I dunno, but this was all I could come up with.

[Neil B]

Yep, your plan sounds like my plan. I talked with the former owner and he confirmed the alternator needs to come loose and the pulley needs to come off the alternator as well. Mine is a bit different than yours because the added idler under the blower attaches to the inside bracket instead of the head unit side of the bracket (that made it near impossible to get the head unit off). My plan on reassembly is to leave the sway bar off and power steering cooler loose until the head unit is back on. I may try to re-install the cooling fans after the head unit as well. There's just no room to work with the F1R head unit.

[Neil B]

I thought I'd follow up and explain how I performed the belt install....

1) If you haven't already, weld a nut on the backside of the tensioner that you can grab with a wrench from under the car.

2) Weave the belt through the head unit and pulleys off the car and then reinstall the headunit and bracket as a single piece. Leave the bolts connecting the front and rear brackets loose for now.

3) Route belt around crank, water pump and ps pump.

4) Now, take off the 4 top bolts connecting the front and rear blower brackets together. Leave the bottom one installed (the one with no nut). Now push the blower and front bracket towards to driver's side (it will swivel on the lower bolt still installed) to give you some more belt slack.

5) Take the top bolt out of the alternator and push alternator in towards it's bracket.

6) Grab a friend.

7) Have 1 person take the tension off the tensioner with a wrench down below while the other person slides the belt over the alternator. This can be done without using tools/pry bars on the alternator.

8) Now, take a big screwdriver and stick it through the outer and inner blower bracket holes to line them back up. Re-install the 4 bolts.

9) Use a pry bar to push the alternator back out and reinstall the top alternator bolt.

You're done.