Home Made Belt Tension Tool

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I thought we had a Home Made Tools" thread but I couldn't find it. Anyway sometimes you need to know the tension of a belt by using a certain spring pressure measured to a certain calculated or published deflection distance. You can buy many different ones, the cheap simple ones are not adjustable and usually go to 10 lbs and there are some costing hundreds. Also I needed it today. Made of a 3/8" carriage bolt put thru a piece of heavy gauge tubing with a spring and a flange nut. Tighten the flange nut to calibrate. I got it rough with a luggage scale and a bathroom scale then fine tuned it on my wife's cooking scale, which coincidentally goes to 22 lbs which is exactly the pressure  I need for todays job. Once tuned you just press the bolt head on the belt at center with a straight edge laid across and when the flange nut starts to lift you measure the deflection. You can feel it start to lift just like a click stop torque wrench. It gets you in the ballpark anyway. You could use a snug round tubing or washers if the spring wants to go inside the tubing, I just used what I had handy. The spring sits nicely on the end of the heavy gauge square tube despite the fact that in the picture it looks like it's going inside of it.

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Last edited by bigb; 15 Hours Ago at 12:00 PM.Miller Challenger 172Miller Thunderbolt AC/DC 225/150Miller Maxstar 150 STLVictor 100CVictor JourneymanOxweld OAHarris O/ASmith O/A little torchNo, that's not my car.
Reply:Good thinking. I really like that



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Reply:You could have also used a fishing scale, but we all know fishermen lie.


Just kidding. That's a great idea. BD1 may come to the defense of fishermen worldwide.  Sent from my SM-G996U using TapatalkMillermatic 252 MIGMiller Dynasty 200DX TIGMiller Spectrum 625 PlasmaAltas 12x36 Metal LatheBridgeport Milling Machinewww.psacustomcreations.com
Reply:

Originally Posted by bigb

I thought we had a Home Made Tools" thread but I couldn't find it.
Reply:That's smart.  I never really know what the tension is on my belts.  It's always a guess.  Neat tool.