I have a question about my 80 cutlass with a 455 in it .i recently noticed my temp gauge running up in the 220 range when im on the highway ,ive never seen it this high so i started looking into possible causes and noticed my power steering belt was loose and there was no more adjustment to tighten it up.Im running down another belt to take care of that issue but my question is shouldn't a properly tightened alternator belt be enough to spin the water pump and cool my engine? as i said ive never had an overheating issue with this car it has a 19 1/2 inch clutch fan (working good) fan shroud and 4 row aluminum radiator with a high flow 160 degree thermostat and has always ran in the 170 to 190 range when hot.

 

I honestly think your problem lies somewhere else. I would look at tuneup settings.

 

that could be I’ve got a new belt on now and I’ll do a flush while I’m at it .then possibly look into the timing .

 

Pretty sure the alt belt is driven by the PS belt, not the other way around.

 

Both belts are driven by the harmonic balancer pulley and both make contact with the water pump pulley.No matter what belt is loose or missing one of them still drives the water pump.what im not sure of is how efficient only one belt works. i did back the timing off 2 degrees ill test drive this afternoon in the heat and see how it does.

 

I think one belt should spin the water pump enough to keep the car cool.