Dusting alternator belt

[russp]

In case any other Catalina owners have this problem, now or in the future, thought I would put this note on record. I have a Balmar 6 Series 100A alternator with a standard belt and pulley set, all ran perfectly well for about 3 years, and then my belt started dusting (black rubber dust everywhere, but especially on the alternator faces). I sought help from several sources, including this forum, and after 2 years of frustration, and purely by chance, came across the solution on another sailing forum.

Suggestions all revolved around too much load from the bigger alternator, misalignment, insufficient belt tension, wrong belt, and I checked and replaced belts and realigned the alternator and called in a mechanic, all to no effect, just kept on dusting. I mentioned to everyone I talked to that just before it started dusting I had a leaking raw water pump and this had dripped onto the belt and caused corrosion on the crankshaft pulley face. I had removed the belt and cleaned up the pulley (using "in/out" strokes to increase belt grip) until it felt smooth, and no-one subsequently paid this aspect any attention.

The article that I found said that he too had been having this problem, that a mechanic friend of his had advised that it was due to rust on the pulley faces, and had come over, removed the belt, run the engine and really worked the pulley faces with emery until a high polish was achieved. Then he applied grease to protect the metal face from further rust and reassembled. No dusting!

I did just this last weekend and with the same belt that was happily creating dust everywhere the previous week, and the same belt alignment and similar alternator loads, no dust after an hour's run time! Brilliant and hopefully of some use to someone else sometime.

Russ Peel
Avalon #150