Belt tensioner setup 1992 fox body

Swhitney

Active Member
Feb 11, 2019
175
7
28
Oregon City
I have been running a ghetto belt tension setup for some time now. I finally got a wild hair to fix the problem, but need some advice with part numbers to fix the problem.

1992 Mustang 5.0 with no power steering, AC, or smog pump. The correct belt tensioner broke a long time ago and I have no idea which one was the correct one for this setup. I threw the stock one on with some convincing which is functional, but there is no give in the belt and has caused extra wear on the alternator bearing.

See attached photos for reference.
 

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That is the stock belt tensioner but because the car is missing a bunch of accessory’s it required a different routing style.
I plan on replacing the a few things on the front of the engine and cleaning her up.

Refer to the attached picture of an idea.
 

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Use a stretch belt. Note, this is not the correct size, it's just an example: LINK It stretches under load to maintain proper tension. Therefore, you don't have to worry about the tensioner doing its job.


Now, if you want to ditch the tensioner and go with an alternator bracket with adjustment rod, then I'm not sure how you'd do so without a non-reverse direction water pump. Without anything on the opposite side of the waterpump from the alternator, you don't need it to reverse rotate.
 
That last picture would need a different water pump and pulley from the original. In that picture the water pump would spin backwards. The water pump would also need a grooved pulley.

You need to do some jy hunting to find a 6 ribbed water pump pulley and order a standard rotation water pump. This may also require you to change the timing cover also. The gasket is usually just a circle hole so may not need the timing cover. After that all your need is this...

Screenshot_20190211-201424_Chrome.jpg


You want a 1984 lincoln town car 5.0 water pump...according to this....

Screenshot_20190211-202624_Chrome.jpg


...and a 6 rib alternator pulley.

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