I just went through this exercise of one belt being at the outer limit, and the next available size down was just too short. In my case it is an 8BA engine squeezed into a carrier.
The flatheads with the single water pump pulleys only had a bushing for the water pump shaft. As such, the belts were elft with considerable deflection. Since our CMPs had the heavy duty double pulley water pumps with a more conventional bearing on the pump shafts, you can get away with a little tighter belt.
The new belt will stretch considerably in the first 10 minutes of run time. Rather than forcing it on with a screwdriver, get it started onto the upper pulley as best you can and then turn the fan to get it to take. Once it is on the pulley, you may find it is not that bad. After 10 minutes of run-time, you may find it stretched into specs.
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