Squealing belts on a W31 swap...

[229MonteHO]

Well, picked up my brother in law's '83 Cutty Supreme, which had the 1970 W31 350 Olds swapped in. The car has a belt squeal that won't go away. When he put this engine in the car he had no accesories, so he used all the brackets and such from the old 307. Now it squeals like a b*tch when the rpms go over about 2200 or so. The AC was removed and the smog pump is no more, and I was wondering if all the missing bits from the other side of the motor have thrown the whole thing off balance? I've noticed that in some older pics of Olds engines from the early 70's, the W31's had the alternator on the passenger side while other versions of the 350 had ther alternator on the driver's side. If any Olds minded folk could shed some light on this it would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Aaron

 

[dan2286]

You will need to get a passenger side alt. mount and the noise will go away. You are running everything one one side which puts a lot of strain on the water pump and the belts cant be tightened properly. You will also need to get a non-ac water pump and pulleys, because they will be different.

 

[229MonteHO]

Kinda what I thought. I figured pulleys would be different, but what's different about the pump? Is it like a SBC with the short and long pump setups?

Aaron

 

[dan2286]

Kinda what I thought. I figured pulleys would be different, but what's different about the pump? Is it like a SBC with the short and long pump setups?

Aaron

Thats correct about the water pump.

 

[joe_padavano]

A real W31 would have come with the long A/C water pump, which was also used for HD cooling applications. There was a special factory pulley used with the long pump and no A/C. The driver's side alternator mount is for A/C, the passenger side is for non-A/C. Either setup should work fine with no squealing. Did you remember to replace both the spacers between the PS pump bracket and the frame? These often get lost, leading to belt misalignment.