Center to Center with belts

[ferrari77]

Our team is prototyping a drivetrain in the offseason and we wanted to try out building it with exact center to center spaced wheels with timing belts

Last year we used bearing blocks and tensioned them but it would be a lot simpler if we could do away with the tensioning

I have a few questions about this
Once we calculate the correct distance and build it, how do you get the belts onto the pulleys. Our previous experience shows that the belts have to be pretty tight so it seems that it would be very hard to put the belts over the flanges on the pulleys

Also, how precise does it have to be built? All of our sheet metal work is done using a hand operated sheet metal punch and sometimes holes can be off by as much as 1/32 of an inch (less than 1/16) Would it be better to always err on the side of farther apart rather than having the belts be loose?

This will be a completely sheet metal drivetrain by the way

Any other advice about doing C-C belts would be appreciated