"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...

I've had good luck with Gates "Green Stripe" belts, available at NAPA
auto parts. 200 hours is still not all that good. There must still
be another issue somewhere. Having experienced any number of belt and
alternator failure modes, I can tell you that a nice clean belt break
is preferable to a whining, squealing burn up which is throwing off
black rubber bits and smoke in the engine compartment.

Our *big* alternator is now a 320 amp Leece-Neville fire truck unit
driven by three belts. It has over 500 hours so far with no belt
changes or signs of premature wear. Even with the current limiting
resistor, the alternator causes the DD 6-71 diesel to audibly grunt
for a split second when I switch in the house bank.

Since 200 hours represents a couple of years or so, I'm not terribly worried
:{)) Our belts are Gates, too, but from NAPA and wherever we can find it;
they're toothed/cogged/scalloped on the inside, and heat, ever since, has
not been an issue.

But we DO have belt dust, a bit. Never had a squealer, though; our
alternator's only 70A and as far as I can tell, it's never challenged the
belt, particularly.

In the cases where we have to motor, it will fill the bank from wherever
we've gotten it down to - usually not less/more, depending on how you count,
than 70%, but otherwise, it's loafing. Our solar and wind do all the heavy
lifting...

L8R

Skip

--

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

When a man comes to like a sea life, he is not fit to live on land.
- Dr. Samuel Johnson