Alternator Belt Break and overheat
 

I have a brand new engine in a 74 Super Beetle...installed in April.
The Alternator belt broke on my way home and I drove about 10 miles
to the nearest lighted area.
The engine was smoking... I thought the aircooling system was ran off
of the crank, or is it electrical???

whoops !

The cooling runs off the alternator pulley. The alternator shaft goes
right through the alternator and out the back (front) where it has the
cooling fan atached.

So, not belt - no cooling.

I hope your engine is not too bad, tho I suspect the worse.

Next time your belt brakes STOP !

Rich


Rookie wrote:

> I have a brand new engine in a 74 Super Beetle...installed in April.
> The Alternator belt broke on my way home and I drove about 10 miles
> to the nearest lighted area.
> The engine was smoking... I thought the aircooling system was ran off
> of the crank, or is it electrical???
>

"Rookie" > wrote in message
...
>
> I have a brand new engine in a 74 Super Beetle...installed in April.
> The Alternator belt broke on my way home and I drove about 10 miles
> to the nearest lighted area.
> The engine was smoking... I thought the aircooling system was ran off
> of the crank, or is it electrical???
>
>

.............If it was working, I find it difficult to believe that your oil
pressure light didn't come on before ten miles. And why did you need to find
a lighted area? Do you think that criminals can see in the dark better than
you? It's too late for your engine but you need to be bestowed with an
air-cooled edition of the Darwin Award.

"Tim Rogers" > wrote:
>"Rookie" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> I have a brand new engine in a 74 Super Beetle...installed in April.
>> The Alternator belt broke on my way home and I drove about 10 miles
>> to the nearest lighted area.
>> The engine was smoking... I thought the aircooling system was ran off
>> of the crank, or is it electrical???
>>
>>
>
>.............If it was working, I find it difficult to believe that your oil
>pressure light didn't come on before ten miles. And why did you need to find
>a lighted area? Do you think that criminals can see in the dark better than
>you? It's too late for your engine but you need to be bestowed with an
>air-cooled edition of the Darwin Award.
>
>
I can't see the original post... any way the cooling system is connected to the
alternator and alternator spins because is connected to the belt. If the belt is
broken, there is no cooling system working... a RED light should be on when it happens
(alternator light). When a RED LIGHT is ON we must stop IMMEDIATELY and not when
we want, if we care about the engine.




Joao
72 Super 1302

Rookie wrote:
> I have a brand new engine in a 74 Super Beetle...installed in April.
> The Alternator belt broke on my way home and I drove about 10 miles
> to the nearest lighted area.
> The engine was smoking... I thought the aircooling system was ran off
> of the crank, or is it electrical???

Ouch! Hope you didn't do too much damage.

I take it you have not done any work on your bug? There's nothing wrong
with that but you may want to educate yourself on the basic maintenance
and care because a mistake like this can be costly.

http://www.bugmevideo.com/ volume 1 would be a good start.

Remco

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:36:14 GMT, "Tim Rogers" >
wrote:

>"Rookie" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> I have a brand new engine in a 74 Super Beetle...installed in April.
>> The Alternator belt broke on my way home and I drove about 10 miles
>> to the nearest lighted area.
>> The engine was smoking... I thought the aircooling system was ran off
>> of the crank, or is it electrical???
>
>............If it was working, I find it difficult to believe that your oil
>pressure light didn't come on before ten miles. And why did you need to find
>a lighted area? Do you think that criminals can see in the dark better than
>you?

Since he thought only his generator was having problems, he probably
wanted better lighting in order to be able to diagnose the problem.

>It's too late for your engine but you need to be bestowed with an
>air-cooled edition of the Darwin Award.

I know these are going to sound like stupid questions, but indulge
me...

When the fan on an aircooled motor stops running (as the original
poster's did), what happens as the motor begins to get hotter? How
long does it take (I imagine it's a slower process than running out of
oil) for significant motor damage to occur? What area(s) suffer the
greatest amount of destruction?

-- Christian

Save Darfur -- http://www.savedarfur.org/
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ICC (Sudan) -- http://www.persecution.org/Countries/sudan.html

>
>When the fan on an aircooled motor stops running (as the original
>poster's did), what happens as the motor begins to get hotter? How
>long does it take (I imagine it's a slower process than running out of
>oil) for significant motor damage to occur? What area(s) suffer the
>greatest amount of destruction?


The drag beetles can make 1/4 of mile without the cooling system....
Joao
72 Super 1302

"Joao Eliseu" > wrote in message
...
>
> The drag beetles can make 1/4 of mile without the cooling system....
>
>

...................If you're talking about a full race bug that's built for
drag racing, a minute or two of running time with only 10 to 15 seconds of
full throttle and then an extended period of cooling with an electric fan in
the pits between races still only gets you a handful, maybe a dozen(?)
weekends at the strip before it's time to start over with a total rebuild
including new heads and probably a new case.

............I'm actually amazed that any engine could push a car for ten
miles nonstop without any cooling system in operation.

"Tim Rogers" > wrote:
>"Joao Eliseu" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> The drag beetles can make 1/4 of mile without the cooling system....
>>
>>
>
>...................If you're talking about a full race bug that's built for
>drag racing, a minute or two of running time with only 10 to 15 seconds of
>full throttle and then an extended period of cooling with an electric fan
>in
>the pits between races still only gets you a handful, maybe a dozen(?)
>weekends at the strip before it's time to start over with a total rebuild
>including new heads and probably a new case.
>
>............I'm actually amazed that any engine could push a car for ten
>miles nonstop without any cooling system in operation.
>
>
Yes, I as talking about a bug that's built for drag racing. I'm also amazed with
the performance of that bug, without a cooling system...


Joao
72 Super 1302

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