A/C Belt (weird....)

[ollie]

ok, here's a strange one. I recently replaced (or tried to) my A/C, Alt belt on my 94 SHO MTX during it's 60K. The rear belt (PS etc) went on fine but, the forward belt seems to be to short.

This is a brand new belt and i know that older ones stretch etc,,, I ended up using the old belt, for now. It's the right part (k060445, Gates) and I know the routing so, my question is, has anybody else found this a problem or is this just a deffective belt and thus needs to be exchanged. The adjuster was set at the max for loosness etc,,,,and still wouldn't go over the pulleys (and I mean just...)

Am i missing something here?

Thanks!

 

[luigisho]

You're sure you have the routing correct at the tensioner? Routing it over/under/on the tensioner incorrectly will make it seem just a bit too short. Triple check the routing. Otherwise it's always possible to get a mislabeled or out of spec part. That's a bit rare though.

<small>[ August 26, 2002, 04:02 PM: Message edited by: luigisho ]</small>

 

[sdpatt]

Have you loosened the tensioner pulley? To shorten the belt's path, you loosen the 14mm nut on the center of the tensioner pulley then use a 5mm Allen wrench to turn the adjusting screw CCW to move the tensioner upwards and loosen the belt. Once you have the belt installed, rotate the adjustment screw CW to apply tension to the belt. Once you have tensioned the belt so that the longest span has about a 1/4" of deflection from a firm press with a finger, tighten the 14mm nut to 25 lb-ft. If the belt chirps when the A/C compressor engages, tension the belt another 1/2 turn to a turn of the adjuster screw.

This same process goes for the power steering belt. Access to that belt's adjuster screw is much easier with the 18" long, T-handled Allen wrench made for this application.

 

[ollie]

Yep to both accounts (routing and tension). It's really, really weird. The old belt goes on, no problem. When I put the new and old together, the old one seems just a hair larger. I assumed that that was due to stretching (originally) but this makes me wonder a little. One would assume that Quality Assurance at Gates would have picked up on this if it was out of spec. (the new belt). Thanks anyways guys, I'll return it and get another one. I'll update as soon as I'm done. Thanks again!