1965 Mercury Comet

The underhood area on our '65 Mercury Comet is coming along, but the engine's front accessory drive is a pedestrian-looking affair with its discount rebuilt alternator, black stamped-steel pulleys, and V-belt drive. On this restomod racer, we're interested in having form following function and decided that a more modern serpentine accessory drive would be a great and reliable way to dress-up our 393 Windsor engine.

With serpentine drive conversion equipment from Concept One, we were able to accomplish just that. The Concept One hardware is made of aircraft-grade 6061 billet aluminum, and is available either in a machined or polished finish. It will add great visual appeal and single-belt simplicity to the front dress of any Ford short-deck or Windsor engine. Concept One offers everything needed to complete a single-belt serpentine drive conversion successfully. This equipment is also a great way to go if you're setting up a new engine and don't have any pulleys or other front dress hardware to transfer over.

The serpentine drive conversion calls for a reverse-rotation water pump and a four-hole harmonic balancer. For our early Windsor engine, the harmonic balancer required would need to have the early style 28-ounce balance, and yet be equipped with the late-model four-hole mounting configuration for the accessory drive pulley. Doing a serpentine accessory drive conversion on your vintage Ford is a "one call" project since Concept One can provide the correct parts for your conversion. They did so for our project with a new Ford water pump and balancer. A brand-new, polished, 80-amp Power Master alternator was also furnished, and it will complement the rest of the installation nicely. We were pleasantly surprised at the quality and excellent fit of the new Concept One hardware.

Let's look in during the installation of the equipment and see just what was involved.