Fun with belts

[congochris]

So.. had my pathy for months or so, and late last week I lost my fan/ alternator belt. Was more than a little broke, so I could only replace that belt, and the other two looked in pretty good shape, could still read the manufactuerer's brand name and part number, good flex, and looked essentially brand new.

 

Today, belt number two bit the big one.. the AC belt. when that happened, it flipped the other belt over, and hence that one was then missing teeth, and was starting to get cut on the edges. Well, the AC's been toast since the day after I got it, so I decided to leave that belt off, and just replace the PS belt (still being in a broke situation)

 

Now, all three of the belts in question were labeled "Carquest" and looked brand spanking new the day I got the pathy.. and still the outside looks new, even though inside the PS belt teeth are missing, among other things. Anyone else have this experience with that brand of belts?

 

 

I do have to say that swapping belts on this is a heck of a lot easier than changing and tightening belts on my 70 firebird.

[94extreme]

leaving the AC belt off will lead to the A/C not working.

 

belts are pretty cheap man. just because you can still read the name of the manu. doesn't mean jack. on the original belts on my truck you could still see Nissan on them but they were toast.

 

you may want to check for proper tension. they need to be pretty tight. tighter then you'd expect.

[dagwoodzz]

Thought my pathy had a squealling belt, so went to Advanced Auto and got some cheap belts. After further inspection it was the H2O pump squealing.

 

I didn't have the confidence to do that work, so took it to the shadetree mechanic down the street. He reamed me pretty good about buying cheap belts.

 

That was 2 years ago and no problems so far.

 

If you change them before they break it's not a bad idea to store the old ones in the truck somewhere. Might save you from having to hitch-hike one day.

Edited July 28, 2006 by dagwoodzz

[congochris]

Well, the AC already doesn't work.. blows nothing but hot air.. probably have a leak somewhere, and they charged up the system right before I test drove it so it wouldn't be apparent..

 

Luckily I just got a refund from a company that owed me some cash, so I'll have the money to replace even that one, now... probably next week sometime, gotta take the wife to the airport tomorrow.

[zonianbrat]

Yeah you can not trust what the belt looks like or even how it flexes it is all about the ribs and what condition they are in. My timing belt looked brand new when I changed it, I held it up to the new one and could not tell a difference. But my truck had 118,000 miles on her so the t-belt probably would have snapped soon.

[88pathoffroad]

You gotta turn the belt over a little and look at the inside of it to check for wear. If there are more than two or three cracks per inch inside the belt, replace it. The outside edges will not show wear(of course) because they don't contact anything during use.