George, if I recall correctly, and at my age I rarely do, years ago Studebaker drove the camshaft from the crankshaft via a solid gear train.
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I heard the other day about a new serpentine belt system design, a compromise to decrease cost presumably. The tensioner is completely eliminated. Instead the belt is more like a big elastic band, and its stretchy-ness accomplishes the tensioner function, the impulses from the pulley’s are absorbed by the belt. From what I understand you don’t put this belt on the standard way, by loosening a clamp to give you some extra length in belt path so you can put the new belt on. Instead you just stretch the belt over the pulleys using a special tool, done. The compromise is the belt can only be installed one time. If it is ever removed, a new belt must be used. Anybody here have experience w/this?
I can tell you–from unfortunate personal experience–that the Ford Falcon used a fiber-type gear to drive the camshaft.
I have no idea whether larger Ford sedans of that era also used a fiber-type gear to drive the camshaft, but the Falcon definitely did,
My Falcon was a 1960 “Grandma car” that I bought in 1976 with just 11k miles on the odometer. My mechanic gave it a clean bill of health after he flushed the brake hydraulic system, which was largely composed of water.
That car was very reliable–albeit gutless–until the fiber camshaft drive gear sheared in 1979. My Falcon–which still looked pretty good–immediately went to the junk yard.
Not sure what you mean. Was the only connection from the crank to the cam was a fiber-gear? If so, can’t imagine how that would be configured, seems it would have a huge diameter. Or do you mean two cams were connected together by a fiber gear, and the sync between the crank and cams was still a conventional timing belt or timing chain?
I think most old Ford 6 cylinder engines had gear drive for the camshaft. This is a 1993 4.9 L engine;
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Yes!
See Nevada’s post for clarification.
It certainly looks like the crank gear is 1/2 the diameter of the cam gear. Yeah, as long as the crank are cam are nearby, that looks like it would work. Interesting, thanks. I presume the fiber gear is the cam gear.
I prefer the chain, even though it is noisier than the belt, and less likely to cause a catastrophe if it jumps a link. But I have seen illustrations of V engines with all gears from the crank to the overhead cams.
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All-gear drives are pretty rare. Most OHV use chains and almost all OHC engines use chains or belts. OHC with gears requires very precise tolerances. Very expensive. I think the Miller DOHC racing engines, which then became the Offenhauser “Offy” race engines were gear drive.
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Yes, indeed they were. Many engines from the 20s and 30s were gear driven, too.
GM 60s and 70s V8s used iron cam gears with plastic teeth driven by a chain…to make it quieter! They tended to fail at about 35K miles.
Back to the drawing board … lol … yeah, I hear of this complaint from time to time here. Not as often these days.
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It’s called a stretch belt. Had a 2011 Ford Escape use one on the water pump driven by a pulley from the end of the camshaft on the opposite side of the main belt. It plops right on using zippie tie on belt and water pump pulley. They also make special tools.
Certainly. Stretch belts have been in use for at least a decade I believe. Or at least long enough for me to have bought 3 sets of tools to remove/install them.
Fewer moving parts to wear, less weight on the car, where’s the compromise? I see only benefits.
Not really a shortcut, but many older SAABs used a gear drive from the clutch shaft to the transmission input shaft. This was on the engines mounted on top of the trans models with the engine sitting backwards in the compartment.
It is a 3 piece set of gears and worked well in spite of the oddity of it all.
The clutch has an internal slave cylinder and a slave or complete clutch could be changed without pulling the transmission or engine. All done from up top.
We had a 60 and a 62 Falcon that Dad used for commuting. I don’t think we ever had timing problems but one of them, I think the 60 needed a new engine. The garage said it was common with the 6 cyl in them to get around 60K and overheat and end of life. The 62 seemed a lot more powerful than the 60 but that’s the one I was told not to use the radio tooling around town. Of course I did anyway and needed a jump. Never told him. Yeah it was pretty under powered and a two speed I think but still a good utility car.
Yes, it was a 2-speed automatic, and–yes–it was truly gutless, but for around-town jaunts it was a decent car.
Here’s how the stretch belt breaks down from my point of view
Benefits: Eliminates tensioner, w/corresponding maintenance, space, and weight savings.
Compromises: Single use, cannot remove belt & re-use. On a practical matter for a diyer, this means if you have to remove the belt on a Sunday evening while doing car repair, you may not be able to drive to work on Monday morning, not until you can buy another belt; (2) Is tension adjustment even possible? If not, manufacturing deviations in the tension may cause sample problems
Unknowns: Does it do as good of job keeping everything in the belt path working smoothly compared to a normal belt and belt tensioner? How much does a replacement belt cost? Cost of the necessary installment tool?
I’m trying to envision what this means. Doesn’t the transmission input shaft slip through the hole in the clutch friction disc, and then right into the flywheel’s center? Maybe another way to ask this question: What is the purpose of the clutch shaft?
I notice you have a lot of VW and SAAB expertise. Did you work for an imports place?
My first car was a 62 Ford Galaxy, pretty closely related to the Falcon I think. Mine was a 2-door coupe, had the smallest engine available (170 cu inch I think), and a manual transmission w/ 3 on the tree. Very reliable, at least up to the 100 K mile range, sold it after that; it didn’t have quite enough power for steep Colorado uphills to the ski resort. I’d have to learn the twists and turns in the roads well enough to build up speed on the flats and carry that into the uphills. I got pretty good at it. A few years ago I went back to the same place with a rented Corolla, seeing if I could still do it. No. … lol …
Wow, hard to imagine someone ordering a Galaxy, nearly top of the line for full size Fords, with a 170 CI six.
Without researching, I would guess the full size Fords weighed in at 500+ pounds more than a Falcon.
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