Porsche Repair: 924- 2 ?s: Belts and California emissions, california emissions, v belts

Question
Just bought a '79 924, and feel like I rescued a pure-bred from the pound.  Old owner had it for a year and didn't take very good care of it.  ANYWAY-  I'm in the middle of swapping out all the belts, 3 V-Belts and the timing belt.  Trying to get the A/C belt off has been a huge obstacle:  loosened the bolts at the pivot point and on the tension bracket, the compressor is pushed all the way over to the "slack" side of the tension bracket, but I have less than a 1/4" of slack and can't get it over either pulley.  Granted, I am not the sharpest mechanic in the shop, but I don't want to just yank on it until it comes off. Even if that works, I'm not sure I can but the new on on the same way.    Am I missing something?

Second question:  After scratching my head for the first week of ownership, I NOW realize that all that extra #$@%* in the front of my engine compartment is California emissions junk.  (LOVELY!)  Well, I don't live in California and I'd rather not have to A)  Work around all that stuff of B) Remove and Reinstall it everytime I need to make any adjustments of repairs.  What do I need to do to remove all of that (PERMANENTLY) without hurting performance.  (Tell me it doesn't make a difference and I will get to work with my hack-saw!)


Answer
Hi Ron,

First, thanks very much for rescuing that car.  I can tell already that she'll have a much better home with you.

As for the A/C belt, it sound like you've done about all you can.  Here are two alternatives:

1.  Cut if off.  Then measure it carefully and see if it is actually non-stock.  Either replace it with stock or non stock depending on what you find out.  The auto parts stores get these questions all the time: "Can you match this belt but make it 1/2" longer".
2.  Another way would be to virtually remove the AC compressor in place.  By this I mean undo all the attachment bolts so that the front (pulley) end  of the compressor can be rotated on its horizontal plane (make sense?) which would move the pulley sligthly closer to the other pulley and give you a tiny bit more slack.  If the belt comes off this way it's almost guananteed it is non-stock.  So you may have to refer to step 1 above regarding the replacement belt.

Living here in California I am constantly reminded of the "good" we are doing by all that extra#$@%* in the front of our engine compartments.  Knowing the power of the smog police here, I'm almost afraid to tell you what you want to know...my home might get raided and my computer taken away from me.
But heck...you sound like you're my kinda guy, so let's do it.

I actually don't have any good examples of what "special equipment" your car has.  If you'd like, write back to me and tell me a bit more.

Or...if you have a smog pump, delete it and just plug hose holes.
If you have metal tubing "added on" to your exhaust manifolds at the block, delete these and plug holes.  Before I go any further, you'd better tell me more...and check to see if you have an O2 sensor...but don't mess with it yet.

Anyway, when you write back, tell me what happened with that A/C belt.

Dave