The Story of the Well -Traveled Belt Guard

[squonk 41,104]

I bought a 551 Suburban with no engine. It came with a belt guard. 551's came with a Tecky which is a big nay- nay here at The Wheel Horse Plaza / Fake Chicken and Tweety Bird Ranch. Got a K90 from @formariz but it's different enough that the belt guard wouldn't work. Maybe if I slotted the frame and moved the engine back farther. But I hated the belt slap noise the RJ's and Suburbans have when releasing the clutch. Plus @wallfish did such a yeoman's job in the blistering heat crafting some wire guides I wanted to keep them. So it was time to make a belt guard. 

 

I found a belt guard in my basement years ago. I have no idea where it came from or for what it was. It looked pretty crappy. Somebody in NC needed a guard so I gave it to Richard @953 nut to bring to NC from the show. Well that meet up never happened. Richard gave me the guard back this year. I thought great, More scrap!  I got thinking of making a guard. This crappy looking guard metal was pretty stout and I'm no metal smith. So let's have at it.

 

Using the belt guard I got with the tractor I sized how much I needed to cut out.

 

 

Made lots of noise and cut the guard with my 4" grinder with a cutting blade. I put a dab of grease on the crankshaft to locate the approximate location of the hole needed.

 

 

 

 

Using my very large Horror Fright compass I located the distance from the center of the crank to the rear mounting stud for the guard and drew an arc on the guard.

 

 

 

 

A dab of grease on the stud and the rear stud location is approximated.

 

 

I used the same procedure to locate the front mounting hole.

 

 

Test fit the guard. It fit but it looked like it needed something. After consulting with Bear's @ebinmaine and backyard hammer mechanics we decided on rounding off the front.

 

 

I also decided to round the rear some. Enclosing the edge would take some welding so I had to take it to my friend Bill the welder. He discovered this guard was galvanized. Never knew WH did this. He got it done the next day and I trial fitted the guard

 

 

Prepped ,painted and installed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 21 by squonk

[SylvanLakeWH 25,557]

Nice!!! 

[Moparfanforever 844]

Looks good from here!!!

 

[ebinmaine 67,484]

Man that looks great Mike! 

[wallfish 16,996]

Grasshopper, You just graduated to yellow belt front yard hammer mechanic! LOL

[Pullstart 62,851]

Nice work!  

 

 

[squonk 41,104]

4 minutes ago, Pullstart said:

Nice work!  

 

 

" Blue Hairs"

[squonk 41,104]

Also " Losing Hairs " 

[Handy Don 12,217]

3 hours ago, squonk said:

Also " Losing Hairs " 

Now THERE is a tangent just begging for comments!

[Tractorhead 9,064]

Great Work Mike !

 

👍

 

Regards from the „Haircompatible“ bavarian 😎😂

[oliver2-44 9,746]

On 7/22/2024 at 5:18 AM, squonk said:

Also " Losing Hairs " 

Not just Hairs