Bloo Beest

I'm new to this restoration stuff, and I haven't worked on cars for years. I had made it a rule that I didn't work on cars (it's an ADD thing, used to lead to a lot of loud remarks that scared the neighbors. My wife made me stop. But I'm all better, now that I got the meds.)

So I got into the project of changing the ugly serpentine belts off and putting in a V-belt system that was more in line with the 67. It was difficult to get any information on the conversion, so I thought I would make a list of tips for anyone considering it.

I decided on a nice set of March pulleys. There are several varieties, and I settled on the three bolt balancer type. (After the four bolt type wouldn't work. Anyone in the market for a sluightly scrathed Four bolt pulley set for a 302?)

When you swap out the Sbelts you have to chuck all of the old brackets, mostly because they're ugly. I found I could not use the old steering pump because I couldn't find a Vbelt pulley that would fit the shaft. The only Vbelt pullets I could find were press fit as opposed to the current keyed shaft. So I got a rebuilt 67 style pump, A March bracket for it, and used a March pulley. Fitment turned out to be pretty simple.

I got generator from (don't remember off hand) and a real nice billet bracket. I ended up throwing away the bracket because it wouldn't fit with the timing cover. I went to a stamped steel bracket, and used the adjuster from the billet set.

Of course, the water pump rotates in the opposite direction, so you have to get another. What is confusing is when you are talking to people who haven't done something like this and the terms standard and opposit rotation are used. The Sbelts have been around so long they are kind of the new 'standard' rotation. But REALLY they are opposite. So you have to get a standard 302 pump.

Then you will need to change the timing cover to one for the standard rotation pump. The water passages are cast a little different. MAKE SURE THE COVER YOU GET HAS A HOLE FOR YOUR DIP STICK. That was a little frustrating. Ford sure makes a lot of variations. (Anyone in the market for a timing cover without a hole, painted dark blue?)

Now here's the real good advice: Change your balancer to a three bolt. There are a couple of universal balancers out that will make your life simpler and are well worth the money. The 50 oz balancer that came on my 5.0 is about an inch thicker than the 28 oz balancer on the original 302. The adjustable balancer is 50 oz and as thick as the 28.

With the three bolt March pulley kit the pump and balancer pulleys lind up perfectly. The standard rotation pump sticks out farther than the opposite rotation, and you will never get the four bolt balancer to fit. (the 28 oz balancer is thinner, and although the standard rotation pump sticks out farther the balancer pulley is deeper.)

The setup for the alternator and steering pumps was then easy. If I were going to do this again I wouldn't even bother with the other parts until I had the balancer and waterpump pulleys set up. Saves a lot of confusion.

And finally, I have to say that when I finally called March about all of this I discovered they have some guys there that really know their stuff. Even though he couldn't understand why I would want Vbelts, he was real helpful. Call them first is my recommendation.