shreaded another alternator belt

[sean_goodman]

first nice day in weeks, took it out for a spin and within 5km shreaded the alternator belt.

now something is up because it shreaded a belt belt about 30km ago!

thats 2 belts within about 30km! when i fitted the belt i checked for stones etc and found nothing, both belts were from Continental so i assumed they were pretty good quality, now i am not so sure

when i have calmed down (prob tomorrow) i am gonna go out and have a really good inspection of all the pulleys. i think i am gonna try a different manufacturer, might be bosch as they are quite big where i live.

anybody got any other thoughts on the subject?

belt was 6 rib 1705 long by the way

[egomeister]

I'd be amazed if the failures were due to the the belts themselves. I think it'd be far more likely that it was due to the setup of the alternator itself.

I don't know if there is any adjustment in the system on a noble, but it would be worth checking the pulleys were properly lined up before fitting the new belt, and that when fitted the belt is at a sensible tension.

[steve1]

Make sure you have the belt running central on the pulleys, if it runs off-centre then there is a possibility that it could rub on something and damage the belt, or even start to run off the pulley itself.
The easiest way to check, is to fit the belt, then check with the car idling, then get someone to rev. the car and look to see if the belt wanders.
I'm sure you have already done this, but also check all pulleys are free running.
Can't think of anything else to check.

Steve.

[node]

something like this might help you out -

http://toolmonger.com/2006/12/19/reader-find-the-p...

[sean_goodman]

steve1 said:

Make sure you have the belt running central on the pulleys, if it runs off-centre then there is a possibility that it could rub on something and damage the belt, or even start to run off the pulley itself.
The easiest way to check, is to fit the belt, then check with the car idling, then get someone to rev. the car and look to see if the belt wanders.
I'm sure you have already done this, but also check all pulleys are free running.
Can't think of anything else to check.

Steve.

yep all done mate when the last belt went, hence why i am a bit bemused.
gonna give it a bit of a seeing to tomorrow,

[CTO3]

i went through a few belts in quick succession, checked everything as mentioned above. when JNM rebuilt the engine they had similar issues, think the alternator was slightly out of allignment.

when i got onto belt 3 i just cut the outside rib off after it frayed, again, (closest to rhs of car) and ran fine with 5 ribs for ages until JNM replaced it.

was running 1700mm 6 rib

conleth

[sean_goodman]

CTO3 said:

i went through a few belts in quick succession, checked everything as mentioned above. when JNM rebuilt the engine they had similar issues, think the alternator was slightly out of allignment.

when i got onto belt 3 i just cut the outside rib off after it frayed, again, (closest to rhs of car) and ran fine with 5 ribs for ages until JNM replaced it.

was running 1700mm 6 rib

conleth

interesting, is there any way to check alternator alignment?

[peterguk V6 KWK]

Check the build manual.

[sean_goodman]

peterguk V6 KWK said:

Check the build manual.

yeah cheers, funny that just been looking at that between the last two posts lol.

cant really see how the alternator would have changed though, the car had a gates belt fitted when i got it, used to squeel when cold so changed it, this belt shreaded, new belt has shreaded.

belt taken off (gates) was 1708, admittedly both new belts are 3mm shorter but i cant see this making much difference.

really need to go out and give it a really good looking at which i planned for today. bloody raining though and light is so much better outside than in garage so i might have to wait til it drys a bit

[JAZ 34]

CTO3 said:

think the alternator was slightly out of allignment.


conleth

Happened to me with just 100 miles on my then new M400. The factory picked it up from here in Aberdeen, fixed it and delivered it back to Aberdeen.

They told me this should never have happened on an M400. They did first of all recommend I took it to a local Ford garage and Noble would pick up the bill but I got a call 10 minutes later to say they would pick it up all the way from dowm South.......Alarm bells started ringing..........

[M400UK]

I had the same problem with the belt shredding. It was as others are stating, because the alternator was not lined up correctly. I eventually ended up removing the a/c compressor and alternator and trying to find some play in lining up with no luck. It was a while back, and I read up the build manual which had nothing about this problem. I think I used some washers to set the offset just right on the a/c pump so that the belt was running bang on straight on to the alternator pulley. I found that when the belt comes down from the a/c pump to the alternator it was everso slightly catching on the edge of the alternator pulley, causing it to slowly fray the edges. Since I aligned it 7 months ago, it hasn't come off or frayed and I've covered about 2000 miles since the fix.