I finally have some time to work on my Vette and have been tearing down a little at a time. The first picture you can see the belt tensioner is not straight. The belt tensioner had a disclaimer on it that it isn’t for supercharger use unless using a dedicated belt for the supercharger. I was driving all of the pulleys off of the same belt.
You can see the Bent tensioner, the belt slid off.
Bent tensioner backside, easy to see what happened, I didn't think I had enough torque to do this kind of damage.
I was sitting at a light idling when the belt came off, I shut down pretty quick but the belt wrapped around the balancer good. I cut the belt trying to remove it but the AC belt and some of the 8-rub belt became jammed behind the balancer and after a few days of trying to remove the pieces that wouldn’t come out I finally conceded I would have to remove the balancer.
Remove tierods from both sides.
Drop swaybar
Used turkey baster to remove power steering fluid
Z51 has power steering cooler, gots to go.
Disconnected steering shaft.
I used a bungy cord to hold the steering wheel from spinning on me.
Removed all of the lines for the power steering rack.
Got the ABS out of the way.
Took a little persuasion to get the rack loose.
Rack is finally out.
Now I can remove the balancer.
Using a puller to get the balancer pulled off.
With the balancer off, now I can see all of the pieces of belts that was jammed between the balancer and cam cover. All of this work due to a weak belt tensioner.
Now the balancer is off, looks like the front seal may be leaking, this is the time to replace it whether it is leaking or not.
Hell I am in this deep, I might as well upgrade the camshaft. I decided to go with the ZR1 cam, GM Part Number 12638427. Good cam for a supercharger and mild enough for my automatic and should have a good smooth idle.
Loosened cam gear and lined it up with the crank.
Next, time to remove rockers and pushrods. Removed cam gear/ chain, cam tensioner and cam plate.
Spun the cam around while inserting 5/16 inch dowels, this will keep the lifters from dropping into the oil pan while I remove the camshaft. The dowels are both 24 inches long and they were the same distance out, looks like they are both all of the way in.
Gently remove camshaft.
New ZR1 cam is on the left.
Installing the new cam. I lubed up half of the cam and very gently installed half way in. Good time to lub up the rest of the cam and finished inserting the cam all of the way in. Once in, rotated the cam a few times to make sure it rotates freely.
More later, need to check service manual for installation torque amounts.