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Serpentine Belt
Posted by captainkirk (more from captainkirk) on Mon, 14 Aug 2000 00:49:26
In Reply to: , Kok Chen, Sat, 17 Dec 1988 12:00:00

You may have seen me post on the BBS before about my serpentine belt
problem. I'm at my wits' end with this thing. Here's the necessary details
(this is the long part):

'94 Saab 9000 CDE Turbo, B234 engine with single multi-grooved serpentine
belt. 77,000 miles Problem: Serpentine belt shreds itself without warning.
3 times at idle, just starting to accelerate, 1 time at 65mph. One of those
times, the belt shredded itself toward the passenger wheel, all other times
toward the engine. The only common denominator seems to be that the air
conditioner is running at the time.

After the second instance, the TSB regarding the belt tensioner bushing was
addressed, as well as replacing the tensioner shock itself. Confident we
had fixed the problem, we closed the book, until 8k miles later. Belt was
replaced again, along with the idler pulleys that melted, and we went back
to waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Which it did, 3k miles later. By this time, I already had Saab USA
involved. Lots of help they were. You have to take it to a dealer, they
said. Dealer installs belt, says 'Come back and have us look at it every
3500 miles.' Tuesday I went in for the first checkup. No sign of wear or
problems. I took the car back to my independent mechanic (a guy who works
on plenty of Saabs and is BOSCH/ASE certified, with over 20yrs experience).
We went over every conceivable scenario, and we cannot say with any
certainty what is going on. We believe that we have established it is NOT
due to any of the following problems:

- burrs on the pulleys
- obvious misalignment of pulleys on the belt path
- permanent seizure of component
- bad bearings in A/C pump
- damaged A/C expansion valve
- bad tensioner
- incorrect tension setting
- used or non-Saab replacement parts
- incorrect belt installation

One thing we are wondering is: Can the tensioner arm bracket itself be
slightly bent without us knowing it? It is the only part which he cannot
measure for certain.

Also, does a tensioner normally make noise? Using his stethoscope, we were
able to hear quite a racket every time the tensioner flexed - but we have
no known good 9000 available to which we can compare it.

Finally, we noticed that the idler pulley closest to the front of the car
sticks out rather far from the engine block, showing 1/8' of itself to the
right of the belt, resulting in very little clearance (about 1mm) from the
left side of the belt to the idler pulley bracket wall. Conversely, the
idler pulley at the rear of the engine is very close to the engine, showing
a bit of itself on the left side of the belt, and none of itself to the
right of the belt. (when I use right/left in this case, I am referring to
the actual right/left sides of the car, not the perspective of standing in
the front and looking into the engine compartment). Now, there is no
adjustment to be made to the distance that these pulleys stand off from the
engine, so why would it matter if the darn things look off kilter (other
than the fact that it just bothers us)?

Also, if you can provide sufficient cause for believing that a component IS
temporarily seizing and causing the belt to jump off, then releasing,
please let me know. Here is a list of everything that the belt runs across:

Air Conditioning pump
Alternator
Harmonic Balancer (crankshaft pulley)
Idler Pulleys (two)
Power Steering Pump
Water Pump

Thank you immensely for taking the time to read this. If you have any
insight at all, please let me know. If you have questions, please email me.

Thank you,

Kirk
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