I'm interested as well since the conversion is an option for me

 

I have and Serpentine Belt on my 93 F250 Turbo which has been a real pig right from day one when I bough the truck. The belt would not track right, ended up tearing a lot so Ford upgraded my tensioner to a model from an F-450 which has improved the operation to the point were I can actually get 30kkm between belts. The aftermarket belts with the cloth backing cover instead of the rubber cover also seem to help. I let my last belt on too long and it broke and took out some electrical wiring in the process, luckily I was on my way to the shop when it broke so did not need a tow. The broken belt also wound itself tightly around between the dampener and the seal cover so it took a bit of cutting and prying to get it off. The truck is a 5 speed manual and the belt jumps around alot when I shift gears. The heavy duty tensioner that was installed to replace the factory tensioner with the wimpy plastic or brass bushing has helped but the belt still jumps around a lot when I shift gears so I don't get a very long belt life usually. The trick is to change belts before they break.

I got the V-belt set up on my 91 F350 and it has got the funny wobble on the altinator belt at idle but otherwise works flawlessly. Probably cost me a hp or two, but is very reliable.

Overall I would prefer the sepentine belt setup if it worked the way it should and I would be able to do 80kkm on a belt; however, given my experience with the serpentine belt on my 93 F250, I would stick with the V-belt setup rather than change. You could run into all kinds of issues with the sepentine conversions and later regret switching.

Sebastian.

 

Sebastian, the serpentine belt snapping is actually not uncommon at all, especially for stick-shifted trucks. As for the V-belt for the alternator flopping around, you can do like I do and run a shorter belt that goes only between the alternator and the water pump, that has little to none belt slap at idle and my idle speed is actually lower than factory which normally makes for even more belt slap...

 

Thank you. I figured I was not the only one that was snapping serpentine belts. I usually replace them every 30,000 kms. Once cracks start to show the probability of snapping the belt while shifting is significant. Serpentine belts definetely seem to last longer on automatic trucks.

I got a 130 amp altinator on my 91 so a short belt around the water pump would only leave me with one drive belt off the damper for everything. I might try this change one day but even with the flopping, the altinator belt seems to last quite well so I just have not bothered changing.

 

I got the 130 amp alt too, I have two belts on the crank pulley - one for the PS pump and one for the A/C compressor. Do you not have A/C? If so you can install a double-V pulley on the PS pump, and again have two belts turning your water pump.