<VV> (UN) Popular-Science-May-1960 Corvair Article re: belts

[djtcz at comcast.net]

original message 
From: "Bob Gilbert" < bgilbert at gilberts-bc.ca > 

Interesting article but what amazes me when I read articles like this is 
that most of the reported problems could have(or should have) been caught 
during basic testing. Didn't the original belt system exhibit these problems 
during testing? Was there no cold weather testing and so on? 
Regards, 
Bob 

----------------------------------------------------------- 
This does not address the belt testing done before 1959, but there is Industrial belt drive precedence. The Corvair belt drive is really four "quarter turn" drives stacked together. Sometimes called a "mule drive." 
John Deere riding mower reference here, about half way down - 
http://manuals.deere.com/cceomview/OMTCU15013_L1/Output/OMTCU15013_L112.html 
http://www.martinsprocket.com/ENGINEERING/D177.pdf 

Here is a typical (modern) comment about using V-belts with quarter turn drives. I wonder if the same comment appeared in the 1955 pre-Corvair catalogs, since the "fix' mentioned in the 1960 PopSci was at least 1 deep groove pulley/sheave. 
" On a V-Belt quarter turn drive, made to order sheaves with deeper and wider grooves are required." 
How "deep" a "deep groove" lulley sheave needs to be is not defined there. 


http://www.ptaustralia.com.au/sites/default/files/V-Belts%20Drives%20with%20Twist%20and%20Non-Alignmnet.pdf 


Benzinger belt discussion seems mainly about extra trouble when driving Spyders aggressively. 

----- Original Message -----
The Benzinger speech talks quite a bit about the development history. 


http://www.vv.corvair.org/Library/benzinger.htm 


Engine development came first - " late in 1957 the first engine was running." 
"Shortly after that, early in 1958, the first of the cars was on the road. These were made by converting Porsches." 


Corvair production started mid 1959. 



There is a whole paragraph about the icing discovery by some factory testers at Pikes Peak in the Fall of 1959 when " there was an early record breaking snowstorm in Colorado. The wet sloppy stuff came down in great quantities. " The factory folks condemned the fuel pumps, but pretty quick carburetor icing was identified, and some of the work done originally to cool the mixture for better power was un-done.. 
"For those of you who had '60's and were in icing country, you knew that this was almost a fix, It handled a fair amount of the icing problems, but when you got really into the rough part of it, when it was 33 or 32 1/2 degrees and 100% relative humidity, you were likely to be shut down by the side of the road anyway. It really wasn't totally satisfactorily resolved until the complete redesign with the damper doors on the outlet which recirculated air. From then on we completely forgot about any kind of icing."