The mechanical fans also pull more air. Cutting a sheave - or two - off shouldn't be a big deal. I cut one sheave off a three sheave crank pulley for my 455 Buick to gain some fan back clearance. I used a lathe - be warned, the pulley material is fairly tough stuff. You'll probably want to use a carbide cutter. That said, careful use of a grinder with cut-off wheel may do the trick. Make the outer edge on the front as true as you can. I did turn my cut-sheave crank pulley in when I dropped off the engine for machining and balancing. I didn't see any drill marks or balance weights so the balance on it wasn't affected too bad if at all. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Interestingly, I talked to a guy today who stuck a SBF into a 34 pickup. His brother did something along the lines of removing the impeller and using a press to push the shaft further down in the pump body. You do have to remove the pump body and do some shortening type machine work on it, but once it's all pressed together you have a fairly short pump as far as the SBF's go. What I don't like about this is, if a pump fails out of town you're screwed. For that reason I try to stick with parts as close to stock as possible. So, to me your cutting the sheaves off looks like an excellent way to go. Pump remains stock and about the only time pulleys fail is when you lay em on the floor during a pump swap or something and then drive Sweetie's pickup over em. Not that I ever did that or anything....
Hi Tingler, I have changed the whole bottom pulley with one that had diff amount of sheaves. I never encountered any out of balance problems. Nice looking 302.
The Jalopy Journal
