'00 WS/6 Belt problems.

**JWSmythe** · 05-20-2007, 06:59 PM

G'morning all.

I have a weird problem that keeps happening.

A couple years ago, my water pump seized up hard. Of course, it cooked the belt off in the process. I replaced the pump with a GM replacement and the belt. Ever since then, it's been eating belts progressively quicker. It's been exactly 3 months between the previous belt breaking, and the current one going.

After I replaced the pump, I noticed the paint on the pully coming off where the belt rides. I wasn't sure if it was even suppose to be there, so I looked at my friends '00 Camaro SS, and my '98 T/A. They're both high miles, and they both have perfect paint where the belt rides.

Two belts ago, I still had half a belt on there (oh, that was pretty). Most of the paint was gone, except for a few rings around the pully. The remains of the belt had broken right at one of these lines, and there were obvious wear marks at the others. I started the engine, and just touched the pully with a flat screwdriver very (VERY) gently, and the rest of the paint came off. It's fairly smooth to the touch now. No grooves, but it's not a polished surface. It should be good for a belt to hold on to.

I've still lost belts at about the same rate, including tonight.

Usually when a belt breaks, I'm not doing anything all that dramatic. This time, I was cruising at 50mph in 5th gear (speed limit's 50, with lots of cops patrolling) on a perfectly straight road. The A/C was on, but I wasn't steering. I noticed the thwacking of the belt coming apart, and the volt meter drop and temp rise. Oh ya, that last mile drive home was fun too with no power steering and very dim headlights. :)

Is there a known problem that would be causing the belt to break? I'm assuming it could be the water pump, but I don't want to spring for one, when there's a perfectly good working one on the car. As far as I can tell, there are no aftermarket replacement water pump pulleys. It appears to be pressed on, so it probably isn't all that easy to get off anyways. When I changed water pumps, it included the new pulley already on it.

My car isn't really very modified. I guess I should go through the changes, in case it's something stupid that I'm not seeing.

From front to back...

Removed baffles from ram air.
SLP air lid.
larger MAF sensor
Smooth billows
Borla Y-pipe
SPEC Stage 3 Clutch
F1 Racing X-Lite Flywheel (13 pounds?)

Everything else is cosmetic, or suspension.

I had to do the clutch and flywheel after I put NOS jets in that were a wee little bit too big. :) I haven't ran NOS in about 3 years or so though. The kit is in a box in my garage somewhere.

I mentioned all the stuff above, because I know I had a problem in a similar but different problem in an '82 Firebird (heavily modified). The air flow was very wide open, and it would rev up REAL quick and hard. I had about a 25% chance of popping one of the belts off if I revved up the engine a couple times from idle to 6k rpm. On that car, we actually watched it happen once. The engine would pull the belt so hard, it would stretch and loosen up on one side, making it fall off. :) There *IS* such a thing as too much power. I'm content knowing that there aren't too many people who can attempt to keep up with me, should I decide to try.

**mrr23** · 05-20-2007, 07:11 PM

my guess would be the tensioner is twisting under load and eating the belt. i had a problem of the belt flipping off. weny to pull on the tensioner and saw it went sideways.

**JWSmythe** · 05-20-2007, 07:25 PM

Originally Posted by mrr23

my guess would be the tensioner is twisting under load and eating the belt. i had a problem of the belt flipping off. weny to pull on the tensioner and saw it went sideways.

Well, this is happening when I'm under no real load. That's what is weird. Just about every time it's happened, I've been cruising along, except once, I was making a gentle start from a red light in traffic.

Tonight's problem happened when I had already been driving about a mile, idling along. I had just run to the grocery store about 5 miles from home. Easy drive there, easy drive back, and about a mile from home, it broke.

Since I replaced the belt last time, I've just been commuting to and from work, and the occasional stop at local stores. I can't say that I've even had anyone try to race me, but it's only a 15 mile commute, and there's usually traffic. I'll see the occasional modified F-body, Corvette or Mustang, but we're all stuck in the same traffic, so no one bothers to try to flex any muscle. The closest I even come is accelerating onto an interstate access road (not the interstate itself), and even then, I'm usually stuck behind some slow car.

Where I've been driving lately almost makes me want to go buy a Toyota Prius.

Everyone goes too damned slow, it wouldn't make a bit of difference in my commute time.

**mrr23** · 05-20-2007, 07:41 PM

anytime you accelerate, you are putting a load on the belt, whether it be light or WOT.

next thought would be the belt is slightly shorter than what's needed and is putting extra stress on the belt. many belt manufacturers will have a belt that might be 1/2" shorter than what's required. instead of making the correct length belt, they just list the closest one as the correct part.

**0rion** · 05-20-2007, 07:52 PM

my gut would tell me that it's some place other than the water pump that's causing your problem and like mrr23 said the tensioner is a pretty good place to start looking. Belts getting chewed from the side makes me think something is out of line and a tensioner torquing would do that. Check all of your pullies over and make sure none or loose or wobbling and then torque around on the tensioner and see if it moves front to back at all.

**JWSmythe** · 05-26-2007, 09:04 AM

Thanks for your responses.

I had to work all week, so I only got to work on it this weekend.

As it turns out, the idler pulley just under the power steering pump had come forward about an inch. It's a pretty simple fix. It did take me looking at all the pulleys about 5 or 6 times to catch it.

It wasn't loose (which is what I was looking for), cracked, pieces missing, or any of the obvious stuff. I was looking straight down the power steering pump pulley, towards the water pump pulley, and noticed that the wear mark on the idler was only half as wide as the rest of the wear marks. Eureka!

I had to really muscle the bolt retaining that pulley back in. I looked carefully at the last belt that broke. Now that I'd identified the problem, it was obvious by looking at the belt. The edge it was pulling over cut it.

Thanks for all your advice!