r-2 with air

[arkus]

my '63 is an r-1 with air, soon to be an r-2 with air. i'm using a rogers profab compressor bracket, a sander 508 rear discharge compressor, and an original  r-2 blower bracket with the correct pulleys. i've read peter sant's article with him using a harrison compressor and all else seems very similar. he appears to use the original prestolite alternator. my problem seems to be lack of any appreciable travel between the compressor and alternator to provide belt tightening. i may have to use an alternate "mini" alternator to achieve this travel and my first question is does anyone know of a 3-wire mini, (i would like to keep my original wiring and voltage regulator, as opposed to a 1-wire setup) that will work and line up without "reinventing the wheel". second, does anyone have the exact length of the blower belts; the ones that came with my parts are n.o.s. studebaker #1548512, too short and not listed in any of my avanti specific information. i would also very much welcome anyone letting me know what i may be doing wrong while trying to use the original alternator, which i would prefer to do. thank you. 

[PackardV8]

At the IM, there were a couple of R2/AC installs where the alternator was driven by a short belt run off the second groove of the AC pulley.

Anyone here tried that and is it an alternative to what you discussed above?

jack vines

[arkus]

jack, thank you for jumping in. i met you at rice's trailer in s/b and told you i appreciated your frequent advice to the forum. i didn't see the air/blower cars as we left early due to the weather. i must be missing something but as i understand it the prestolite is run off the water pump with the same belt that turns the compressor. the way i have it mocked up there doesn't seem to be any room to provide even a small amount of adjustability or any other way to hook it up given what i have to work with. i'll take another look tomorrow as to feasibility of running alternator off the second compressor groove.  perhaps others will chime in with alternatives.

[sailingadventure]

Here are a few pictures of the way I installed the A/C on my R-2. I don`t know if they`ll help. I run the compressor and alternator off of the same belt, and it works great,  I`d like to have 2 belts on the compressor but one seems to work just fine.

[brad]

I did it a coupe of times and a few different ways. I like to use the smaller compressor as it is ......smaller(duh). I used a Nippondenso alternator under the supercharger on the latest project. 

[mfg]

Two GREAT LOOKING Avanti engine compartments!!

[lschuc]

Here are three photos of Brad's R2 with air from above,  these showing the belt wrap for the compressor, Paxton and mini one wire alternator.  This is using an aluminum radiator with electric fan operated automatically by an electronic fan controller.  The fan comes on at a set temperature normally, but also is turned on with the AC. All the brackets and the pulleys are Brad's custom engineering.