I found the quality of the bolts to be crap too I mean what's the purpose
of selling a bracket to strengthen the existing setup when you include
regular old carriage bolts with it. Kinda defeats the purpose. After I
installed the "fix it" kit I found that the carriage bolt had been sheared
off and I'm pretty sure I had the belt tensioned correctly. A trip to OSH
and a higher grade bolt made everything good again but I really felt I
shouldn't have needed to get better bolts. Makes me wonder about the
quality of other after market fix it's offered by them.
Just my $.02,
Paul in Tracy

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 8:15 PM, Mike Riley <mkriley@fuse.net> wrote:

> this is a joke as go westy is selling the WRONG SIZE BELT for vanagons and
> then sells a kit to make up for it!
> if you use the right 9.5 belt it will run with much less tension and you
> will not blow out your water pumps and alternator bearings and mounts.
> mike
>
>
> Samuel Butler-- "One can bring no greater reproach against a man than to
> say that he does not set sufficient value upon pleasure, and there is no
> greater sign of a fool than the thinking that he can tell at once and
> easily what it is that pleases him. To know this is not easy, and how to
> extend our knowledge of it is the highest and most neglected of all arts
> and branches of education."
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> To: Recipients of vanagon digests <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> Sent: Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:22:07 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: vanagon Digest - 13 Jun 2012 to 14 Jun 2012 - Special issue
>  (#2012-389)
>
> There are 24 messages totalling 1103 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics in this special issue:
>
>  1. warning regarding GoWesty alternator bracket kit (15)
>  2. Map light (3)
>  3. Help locating pin at harness for idiot lights
>  4. Fwd: Re: [not_a_vw_club] Not a VW club Camp Out JA-DO
>  5. Name of the huge online supplier of nuts,bolts, pipe, etc etc. (4)
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:15:15 -0400
> From: pickle vanagon
> Subject: warning regarding GoWesty alternator bracket kit
>
> GoWesty makes this nice kit to beef up the alternator bracket connection:
>
> http://www.gowesty.com/ec_view_details.php?id=4454&category_id=&category_parent_id=
>
> The carriage bolt that comes with the kit seems to be a very low grade. I
> stripped the threads on mine very easily. And multiple people at thesamba
> have had issues as well:
>
> http://www.gowesty.com/ec_view_details.php?id=4454&category_id=&category_parent_id=
>
> (GoWesty was very nice about replacing my bolt but said the hardness was
> not an issue even though it was perhaps only class 4.8 or so, since the
> bolt "doesn't need to be very tight". I don't like this perspective.)
>
> Anyways, I think the bracket seems like a very good idea overall (and you
> should get one *before* your studs break, not after) but I would recommend
> using a different bolt. Either you can scrap the carriage bolt and use
> whatever you already have straight through with a nut, or, the hardest M8
> 80mm carriage bolts I found were 8.8; fastenal has them. If anyone finds
> 10.9 let me know! I doubt they exist, unfortunately...
>
> When I replaced this not-hard-enough bolt, I replaced the nuts on my
> alternator bracket studs with 10.9 versions at the same time since I'm not
> sure what was already there was the correct hardness. Just wanted to
> report that if you have some funny wrenches then this can be done without
> disturbing the coolant pipe that appears to be in the way.
>
> -Wes
>
> \
>