^^^ "Conventional" ribbed v-belts were notched on the inside. Later, Dayco came up with a line of "top cog" belts, notched on the outside. Evidently they're still available.

 

rite...conventional as in these days.
50-60 years ago the heavy duty industrial belts were ribbed on the outside.

 

The question is: What does a ribbed outside give you?
I can understand the ribbed inside: the belt is getting squished as it wraps around a pulley, and the ribs *should* make it grab a little deeper I guess..
On the outside... what does it matter? (Unless you had the belt being wrapped backwards around a pulley like a serpentine belt)

 

Maybe like in cases of the corvair, it allows you to have a multi-angled or multi-directional v-belt.

 

It adds flexibility so the belt can more easily grip the pulley, just like a ribbed inside, without without sacrificing any surface area in contact with the pulley. If you believe their marketing *****, apparently it increases cooling as well (same as other brands say about internal ribs). True the belt has more surface area so it makes sense, though I'm not sure a belt will get hot enough to matter unless it's slipping in which case it's doomed either way if not fixed soon.

The Top Cog vbelts are one of the better brands. These are starting to show their age so I have a set of Gates green stripe belts I'll put on before any long trips this spring. The gates belts have a very good reputation so I figured I'd give them a try.

 

Well guys, I think I found the problem. I'm actually genuinely surprised the van drove without catching fire. Turns out the connector had melted, and not only that, but the main thicker black/red wire had fallen out of the plug. Not sure how the circuit maintained a closed circuit with that wire gone and still periodically give me headlights and high-beams, but whatever, I fixed it now.





A long time ago when I put in the replacement switch, I wired up my auxillary gauges to have a jumper from the head light cord to the gauges, so that they would dim at night. But that never worked. Now that I clipped off this melted connector, and I properly wired it to the system, not only do my headlights and high beams now work perfectly, but even my gauges properly dim. I guess all the wiring was F'ed up.

I took a bunch of photos of the whole process, and I'll be putting my work on a new post for my IDI blog: IDI Online ? DIY Repair for the 7.3 and 6.9 IDI Diesel Van But right now, I'm hijacking a wifi in some tiny town, so that'll have to wait a few weeks before it's finalized.

Just good to have all my lights working regularly again. The deer and moose up here are a nightmare at night. Also the sasquatches.

 

Those headlight connectors never fail to melt, all gmc/ford/dodge do it, my parking light wire melted out so I just added a spade and manually connected it, I wouldn't have enough slack to add a new plug without pulling the dash....