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Spyder Alternator belt problem

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spyderdrifter

10+ Year Contributor
5,267
711
Jul 11, 2009
Somewhere in, Colorado
I finally got the chance the other day to attempt yet another failed test drive. This time, I drove just outside of my apartment complex and the alternator started screaming, or at least, I'm assuming it was the alt, since the screaming was from that side of the car. I did an illegal U-turn in the middle of the road and got the car back to my garage as quick as I could, was only a couple minutes tops. Got it parked, and let it run for maybe another 30 seconds. The noise never went away until I shut the engine off.

Since I was pissed off about it, I left it alone until today. My assesment of the screeching is it sounded like the alt belt was too tight and potentially messed up the alt pulley bearing. I went back into my garage a little bit ago to grab my spare phone charger and decided just to glance at the pulleys and alt. I pushed down on the power steering belt and alt belt to check the deflection, purposely to see if the alt belt was in fact too tight. To my surprise, I was able to rotate the power steering pulley with ease, which in turn rotated the water pump. The alt belt stayed stationary so I checked down below at the crank pulley. The alt belt is actually loose as s#!t but doesn't spin with the water pump, possibly like it's stuck on something, which now that I think of that, I'm gonna have to go check....

In the meantime, anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm confused by it. I know before I took the car out to drive, the alt belt spun with everything else and there was no screeches until it got a load put on it. Here's a pic and video...

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Belts - YouTube
 
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Im in no way a wiseman but I had a similar issue myself. Bought my car and never had any screeching from the belts and then had to replace my power steering belt since it was split in half. When I got it all buttoned back up it didnt squeal until the following morning.

In the end it was the alternator belt being loose. Tightened it up and.no more issues. The alternator belt has to be very tight on these cars. About 1/4 inch play in the belt.
 
When I installed the belt, I know it was tight, but that doesn't meant didn't loosen up somehow as you guys have mentioned. I've never encountered that happening before, so I didn't consider that a possibility. However, I am gonna get a new belt just in case this one got stretched. It felt really soft when I pulled on it. Probably need to replace all the accessory belts anyway, wouldn't hurt.
 
Also, check the tensioning bolt to make sure that it didn't slide out of the bracket when you tightened it. That's fairly easy to do.
 
ad a nut on the back side of the tensioner bolt so you can "lock" it so it cant loosen up

I never thought about this, very good idea. :thumb:

Also, check the tensioning bolt to make sure that it didn't slide out of the bracket when you tightened it. That's fairly easy to do.

I've had others in the past do this, but didn't check it last night. Always a possibility, I'll check it out tonight.





On another note, I've always been leery of alt belts since my first turbo DSM. Somehow I tightened the belt too much after replacing it, and ended up with a blown harmonic balancer. Car ran for maybe 1 second upon startup and then made a loud thud and shut off. That was a bad day.
 
I never thought about this, very good idea. :thumb:



I've had others in the past do this, but didn't check it last night. Always a possibility, I'll check it out tonight.





On another note, I've always been leery of alt belts since my first turbo DSM. Somehow I tightened the belt too much after replacing it, and ended up with a blown harmonic balancer. Car ran for maybe 1 second upon startup and then made a loud thud and shut off. That was a bad day.
I'd say your harmonic balancer was on its last leg.

also throw a nut on the other bolt that the tensioner bolt goes into that way that wont more either
 
There's no room on that bolt to install a nut.





Well my alt tensioner was in fact popped out. Maybe I failed to tighten it enough. I did pick up a new alt belt on the way home however, so I may install it, not sure yet as it's just barely longer than the original. Like maybe 1/4 in longer. I figured the new one would be shorter as it hasn't be exposed to forces that would promote stretching. Is it still good to use even though its a tad longer? It's part # is 4PK0980 385K4. Old belt # is 4PK980. I know they're close in number, but I'm still curious. In the aviation world, I could enter one digit wrong and end up getting a tank instead of a rivet. Thanks guys.
 
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I had some similar issues with the alternator on my 97. First off the alternator had made no noise previous to replacing the head. When i hooked everything back up in the proper place, it was done with a new OEM alternator belt. From that point on whenevery i started the car, especially on cold starts i would get squeeking noises coming from that side of the engine compartment. As stated in the previous post, the play needs to be close to 1/4 inch and that there may have been my problem. I plan to try my old belt and with that "new to me" info i will post the results from that. Any other imput would be great and **sorry, i am not trying to jack this thread**
 
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