Here's another small project I worked on awhile back. It's nice to have a father-in-law with mill and lathe.

I'm using aluminum pulleys on the 360 for the Dart. I'm also using a Denso alternator instead of the factory style. The company that makes the pulleys doesn't make a pulley/cover for the Denso so I had to make my own. As you can see by the first picture, the alternator pulley sticks out like a sore thumb.


The pulley that came on the alternator had three round holes in the face of the pulley. I'm not exactly sure what their purpose was. Maybe a tool fit in the holes to hold the pulley while the nut was being tightened? Anyway, the holes looked like the perfect place to bolt on a cover. So, the first thing I did was to drill them deeper and tap them. To make the cover I started with a 3" or 3.5" diameter piece of aluminum. I marked out the location of the three mounting holes and drilled them in the piece. Then I counter bored the holes to accept some allen head bolts.


With the aluminum puck bolted to the pulley, I mounted the pulley onto the lathe and machined the outside diameter so it was perfectly round in relation to the pulley itself.


Once the outside was machined, I unbolted it from the pulley and mounted it in the lathe to make the next cut. I drilled out the center to take some weight away and to make sure the pulley cover would clear the alternator shaft and attaching nut.


The next thing to do was to machine a "step" on the back side of the cover that would fit inside the center opening of the pulley. This "step" centers the cover on the pulley.


Now the cover could be bolted to the pulley with the allen head bolts. Next it was back in the lathe to start giving it some shape. Now it's starting to look like something.






All polished up and mounted.