The Top DSM Community on the Web

For 1990-1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, Plymouth Laser, and Galant VR-4 Owners. Log in to remove most ads.

Please Support Rix Racing
Please Support Rix Racing

shredded alternator belt ... no oil pressure. Please help! (pictures)

This site may earn a commission from merchant
affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

pneumagger

Probationary Member
27
0
Sep 13, 2009
St. Pete Beach, Florida
1992 tsi awd, H/G and belt change only 1500mi ago, Mitsubishi & parts dinosaur belts.
Mobile 1 synthetic oil/filter and some Lucas oil stabilizer.

Driving home from the mall today & glanced down while waiting @ stop light. Zero oil pressure but no engine lights or oil lights. Engine temp normal, everything feels fine. I give it a little gas to see if the oil pressure just resting low because I'm idling @ a light. Nothing... oil gauge is dead zero. I often check my gauges when I'm stopped so it must've just happened in the last mile or so. Nevertheless, I pretty much stopped driving immediately. I pop the hood and check the oil. Golden and pretty full... on the top notch of the dipstick. Engine still has both balance shafts, so I'd definitely know if the oil pump (& rear bs) stopped spinning - I would be getting bad vibrations.

I caught a look @ some of the accessory belts and noticed the alternator belt was shredded and half was missing.
Not like half the belt was worn/shaved away... the belt split and shredded down the middle and half the belt fell off the pulleys (see pics).
I cut the broken loose half of the belt off to get it out of the engine and noticed it seemed to have taken some sort of wire harness with it (see pics).
The wire has a black sheath around it and appears to oly have one or two wires in it. I'm unsure if it's broken or simply disconnected.
The broken alt belt piece was a still complete loop, but I simply cut it to easily get it out of the pulleys. That's why it is cut in the pictures.

a) Why would an alternator belt fail like this? Nothing appears to be rubbing it.
b) I'm going to guess driving with half of a badly damaged belt is a no-go. ??
c) What is that little broken wire and connector?
d) Why is my oil pressure reading zero? The oil pump & timing belt appear to be OK.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.
 
the wire with the black shielding around it goes to your oil pressure sending unit. it's pretty common to have them fall off. look at where your oil filter is, you'll see on the very bottom of the assembly to the right of the oil filter there is a little copper "nub", you need to slip that wire connector over that, it will slightly click onto it.

alternator belt shredded most likely cause your harmonic balancer is going bad.
 
The wire is to your oil pressure sending unit. Fix it and plug it in and your gauge should work. As far as the belt a rock or something could of got caught in between the pulley and the belt and tore it, especially if your missing the plastic guard. Its happened a bunch of times to me.
 
Another reason the belt could have gone bad would be because of the water pump pulleys, were they installed correctly? There's a small and big pulley that are held together by four bolts on the pump. If you install the outer pulley facing the wrong side it will throw off the alignment between it the crank and alternator pulley. With that the belt will just get chewed up. Look at the two pulleys on the pump, there should be no gap between them if installed correctly. I did this mistake and cought it short after because my new belts would squeal randomly. I would check them and they were nice and tight until finally when I looked closely at the alt belt I saw that it did not align straight.
 
A non working oil pressure gauge is common in DSMs. A good way to check if you have some kind of pressure without the gauge is to pull the oil cap off during idle and look at the cam. You'll see oil splashing around if you have pressure. As far as alternator belt, I'm stumped. Do what EagleTsiawd said and make sure water pump pulley is in right then report back.
 
the exact same thing just happened to me.. thanks for asking.. more on harmonic balancer going bad? is this true?
 
I'm having a different problem. When I start the car, my oil pressure gauge show normal. But when it heat up, the pressure gauge went down like no oil in there. I check the oil and it look ok. What caused that problem?
 
If you didn't lock-tite the crankshaft bolt ( I use the red stuff for this one), the timing gear will start to walk outward on the crankshaft snout and push the pulleys out of alignment, hence chewing up the belts. Had it happen to a 92 tsi.

I'm having a different problem. When I start the car, my oil pressure gauge show normal. But when it heat up, the pressure gauge went down like no oil in there. I check the oil and it look ok. What caused that problem?

As the oil heats and thins, the oil pressure will be lower. I would suspect a lot of bearing clearance or a worn out oil pump.
 
Another reason the belt could have gone bad would be because of the water pump pulleys, were they installed correctly? There's a small and big pulley that are held together by four bolts on the pump. If you install the outer pulley facing the wrong side it will throw off the alignment between it the crank and alternator pulley. With that the belt will just get chewed up. Look at the two pulleys on the pump, there should be no gap between them if installed correctly. I did this mistake and cought it short after because my new belts would squeal randomly. I would check them and they were nice and tight until finally when I looked closely at the alt belt I saw that it did not align straight.

I agree that this is a likely candidate for the belt getting chewed up, I also made this mistake by having the pully installed wrong when putting in the new motor…:ohdamn:

When looking at it afterward, I could see that the pullies were misaligned with the Harmonic balancer which is what caused the belt damage… you should be able to see it by looking down onto the pullies from above and see the mis-alignment. The good thing is that its an easy fix.
 
check your pullys that spin on the altenator belt
i had that same problem and it turned out that my crank shaft pullys was ripping up my belts
hope this helps
 
Support Vendors who Support the DSM Community
Boosted Fabrication ECM Tuning ExtremePSI Fuel Injector Clinic Innovation Products Jacks Transmissions JNZ Tuning Kiggly Racing Morrison Fabrications MyMitsubishiStore.com RixRacing RockAuto RTM Racing STM Tuned

Latest posts

Build Thread Updates

Vendor Updates

Latest Classifieds

Back
Top