30 miles on the batteries?

[madpogue]

'85 F250 XL RCLB 4x4 T19, Dealers Diesel rebuild aprx. 50,000. Dropped it off at the shop this morning to fix the tranny output shaft seal leak. Just outside the shop the brake pedal goes hard. Popped the hood, and she'd shredded the alternator belt. This is the old-school XL no-AC belt routing:
* Twin parallel belts, crank to water pump to power steering
* Single belt, crank to water pump to alternator
* Single secondary belt, alternator to vac pump
So the vac pump runs only off the alternator. Shop is 30 miles from home (hard to find good help around here....)

We have a fresh belt at home, but of course to install it, I'm pulling the other belts. I'd rather do it at home in the driveway, so I don't have to worry about what tools I forgot to bring out. Twin belts are still turning the water pump and p/s, and I can stop the thing on manual brakes. I'm just wondering if she'd go 30 miles on the batteries. I figure, during the day, no lights, the only thing electrical running off it at the time would be the FSS, right? And the occasional brake lights. I even have the option of dropping in a set of brand new 875 CCA batteries. Think she'd make it? My other choices are to do it in the back of the truck stop lot down the street from the shop (and hope I remembered all the tools), or cash in one of my four-a-year free tows on the AAA-Plus.

 

[mblaney]

It will make it. Leave headlights off!

 

[laserjock]

Electric or manual fuel pump? If you have a mechanical fuel pump it takes nothing to keep it running. I think Gary said 7.2 v to keep the fss open. Electric pump I'd be more wary but if they will put it on charge for you at the shop, you'd probably make it home. The Gp and start take a lot of juice.

 

[madpogue]

It's all stock, so mech fuel pump. DUH, of course, I should disco the GP relay. Thanks fellas, I think I'll give it a try.

 

[dunk]

I've made it farther in a gas truck with Duraspark at night lights on and it even started back up after getting home. I always go as big as I can fit on batteries though. I'd imagine you could run a long time without an alternator with an IDI as long as it starts quickly that first time.

 

[79jasper]

It'll make it.
I don't know about the carrier pumps, but the little Mr gasket pump I had hardly drew much power.
Most newer fuel injected vehicles are said to make it 30 miles with lights on.
So I'm sure these could go a long ways.

Sent from my SM-G900R4 using Tapatalk

 

[icanfixall]

It will make it fine. If you run with nothing electrical on like ac or heater fan its only going to draw power for the fss and that only needs about 7 volts to operate. You can disconnect one battery after you start the engine too or take along a set of new batteries like you posted you have. But easy to disconnect one battery. then you have one battery to start the engine if the used battery runs down cause its old and worn out.

 

[riotwarrior]

If you don't use any electrical except starter and then go you could likely go 100's of miles on a good set of batteries...

JM2CW

And that folks...is why I am going to Serpentine system. One tool and replace belt! DOH....sounds much nicer to me!

GOod luck with your drive, just use gears and OH YA...PUT YOUR TRUCK INFO IN YOUR SIGNATURE

 

[madpogue]

Signatures can be turned off to save real estate and page load time. That's why it's so irritating to see "truck info is in my sig", wrongly assuming that everyone has them enabled.

I kinda sit the fence on the serpentine / V "debate". Serps are certainly more reliable, and no wrestling with adjustment. But there's also the "single point of failure" phenomenon. Belt goes, and at least until you can pull over and swap it, you lose not only power brakes, but power steering, and the big kahuna - no water pump.

 

[chris142]

i drove a plymouth duster home,60 miles at night w\o a working alternator.then i started it in the morning to go get a new alt.

 

[theguruat12]

My alternatour has been out for a week, and on brand new batteries (didn't know the alt. was bad then) I got six days and about 100 miles out of it. Though, my alt. was still putting out like 8 volts.

 

[Saskredneck]

My alternator quit when I was up at hunting camp 500km from home, charged batteries with the gas generator and charger, boosted it and made it the whole way home without any issues. Mind you I was only running the radio and did not turn the truck off when refuelling

 

[vegas39]

If you jumped in one of our trucks with no alternator, mechanical fuel pump and did daytime only driving, I bet you could go for many days before having battery issues. This is what is so great about these old mechanical diesels.

Many of us have added electric fuel pumps, electric fans and whatever else and the more we add, the more we shorten battery run time, should an alternator or belt fail.

 

[madpogue]

Epilogue; she's home. Scheduling fustercluck, had to leave the truck at the shop for two weeks. The few times they had to start it to move it, batteries drained. Had only one set of jumper cables :doh, dude came out with a jump pack, and between the jump pack and the one set of cables to the '95, she finally lit off. Drove it to the back of the truck stop parking lot, and did the belt swap there.

Common parallel-belt thing, when one belt was fairly tight, the other was deflecting big-time. Even though they're measured down to the 1/10 inch, they're not that precise. In the olden days, when a lot of vehicles had parallel v-belt setups, and the countermen at the FLAPS could count to 11 without using a computer, they used a belt measuring tool and went through their stock and found you two belts as close to equal in length as possible. Well I got these online... Just for grins, I swapped positions, just in case there might be a slight difference in the pulleys. Sure 'nuff, they're much closer now; one belt still deflects just a bit, but not nearly as bad.

 

[fuzzy1626]

The tighter belt should stretch after awhile till they are under equal tension.